BevMo! 5 Cent Sale is Here...

(I do not own the rights to this picture)

Yup the 5 cent sale is back and if you've read my previous post on shopping at BevMo you know just how much I cherish that store. But as I said previously, now is the only time to shop there. From my understanding, they have added quite a few more qualifying wines some are even wines that have been scored above 90 points in one of those "wine trade journals". You can look at this event one of two ways. 1) This is the time to get two moderately priced (20-30 dollars a bottle) wines for the price of one. 2) This is the time to go hunting for that wine that only BevMo! carries that just might be a diamond in the rough so you can stock up on it for cheap. I prefer the second option as the treasure hunt is an equally exciting part of wine drinking. I haven't made my trip to BevMo! just yet but that's because I found some stellar deals at my local Cost Plus World Market, but I will keep you all up-to-date on what I do purchase from BevMo! when I do get around to heading over there. I have looked at their online catalog and these two wines look interesting: 2008 Gen 5 Cabernet Sauvignon, Lodi, California; 2009 Ampakama Malbec, Argentina. More to come!

BevMo!

2008 Chateau Labrande Cahors Malbec, France

Color – Deep, even purple

Nose – Blackberry, wet soil, plum, compost?

Taste – I was weary of this Malbec due to my last run in with the French offering of this grape, however I was pleasantly surprised upon taking my first sip of this particular wine. It’s deep and dark in color and has interesting aromas that bring to mind very dark fruit, damp earth, and the combination of the two in what I can only describe as compost. The first flavors that come through are both fruit and somewhat savory flavors; I taste sour blackberry and dark plum mixed with bittersweet chocolate, coffee, and burnt caramel. The mid-palate has just a hint of alcohol, perfect tannins, and a nice even mouthfeel. The finish is medium-to-long with the recurring flavor of burnt caramel now joined by clean fruit skins and leather. The wine is full bodied with nice “warmth” to it as the mid-palate fades into the finish. This wine shows just how pleasant and different Malbec from France can be; it’s definitely a journey I enjoyed this time around.

Overall, I would say this wine is a good-to-great QPR. At 9 dollars a bottle and with the depth, complexity and flavors provided you’d be hard-pressed to find a better full bodied Malbec than this. I would say stock up on this while it’s available at Costco. Don’t expect to find the same flavors as Argentinean Malbec since the terroir in France provides this wine with a more savory flavor profile and a heavier “weight” to this wine. It’s still a winner, a wine I would compare to the Bodegas Flechas de los Andes Gran Malbec but for 4 fewer dollars this is one you want to find right now.