Château Armandière Diamant Rouge Cahors Malbec 2009

The 2009 Château Armandière Diamant Rouge Cahors is a rich, ripe, sophisticated version of Malbec that delivers the boldness and intensity of the finest Argentinean Malbecs along with the added complexity, refinement and sophistication of the best French wines. The 2009 Diamant Rouge sports a deep purple color, while its aroma evokes clean forest scents replete with wild berries, woodland violets, and subtle hints of cacao. With fine-grained tannins, its mouthfeel is refined and sophisticated yet satisfyingly dense and complex. On the palate, it delivers exactly what the nose promises – a satisfying balance of power and grace, with deep and abundant fruit flavors and just enough tannic structure to frame the wine’s satisfying flavors and still assure a decade or more of life. Although beautiful now with just 15-20 minutes of aeration, the 2009 Diamant Rouge should continue to improve in bottle for several more years. Enjoy this highly allocated, traditional Cahors Malbec at cool room temperature (60°64° F) now and for years to come.

Traditional Cahors is a wine to drink with hearty country cooking or as a means to ward off the chill of night. Cassoulet, sausage and bean dishes, game, and thick, heady meat and vegetable stews provide traditional fare for the Malbecs of Cahors. Marinated steaks, lamb burgers, and roasts also provide tasty companions to Château Armandière’s 2009 Diamant Rouge Cahors. Gorgonzola and pear pizzas, smoked meats, and thick slices of cow or sheep’s milk cheeses with plenty of crusty French bread make tasty companions to this wine, too. Penne pasta served with a heady marinara sauce, roasted eggplant, and grated Parmesan makes for a delicious interlude as well. The 2009 Château Armandière Diamant Rouge Cahors is no fading wallflower of a Malbec, so don’t be afraid to bring on the spice and even some heat with this wine. It will stay the course. Bon Appétit!

Bernard Bouyssou is the son, grandson, and great-grandson of a winemaker and the present guardian of Château Armandière, a historic Cahors property and the home to several of France’s finest Malbec wines. Cahors, long known as the “black wine” of France because of Malbec’s propensity to yield deeply colored and highly extracted wine, has long been considered the spiritual home of Malbec.

The Bouyssou family owns 22 hectares (54 acres) of vines spread out among all four of Cahors’s geologically distinct terraces. Bernard fashions a variety of Cahors wines of varying intensity, complexity and price, which highlight the many facets and virtues of Malbec. Château Armandière’s Diamant Rouge (this month’s selection) is the estate’s most renowned offering. It is a traditional Cahors wine made from 100% Malbec cultivated on 9 acres of gravelly slopes on the upper terraces of Cahors, high above the river Lot. The 2009 Diamant Rouge is a Decanter World Wine Awards Silver Medalist, and is available in North America exclusively to members of The International Wine of the Month Club.

Malbec is an important red grape variety traditionally associated with the wines of Southwest France. It is also one of the original red wine grapes of Bordeaux where it is often referred to as Côt or Pressac. While Malbec is used sparingly today in Bordeaux to add a bit of color and body to less stalwart grapes, it remains one of the six grapes permitted in red Bordeaux along with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Carmenère, Merlot and Petit Verdot. However, south of Bordeaux in the region of Cahors, Malbec still reigns supreme. It is the chief grape used in what historically has been called the "black wine “of Cahors. The wines of Cahors have been highly coveted since Roman times and continue to stand as reference points for Malbec, even as more Malbec now grows in Argentina than in France.