Amancaya Cabernet-Malbec 2003 Mendoz, Argentina $16
What the Wine Critics Thought: Wine Enthusiast 92 points
Our highest praises to Lafite Rothschild and Nicolas Catena for putting together this excellent, highly affordable red blend. It smells cool, minty and deeply fruity, with developed blackberry, cassis and smoked meat flavors. Masculine and impressive.

What We Thought: This wine has a strikingly dark, dense, garnet color and an earthy nose of cassis and blackberries. It has good fruit on the medium-bodied palate including lots of blackberry and ripe plum flavors. Like a good Bordeaux, it leans toward elegance rather than power and finishes with well structured but very supple tannins.

March 16, 2005