Gold, 2024 Pacific Northwest Wine Competition
Gold, 2024 Hilton Head Food & Wine Festival
Silver, 2024 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition
Silver, 2024 San Diego International Wine & Spirits Challenge
92 Points, 2024 Pacific Northwest Wine Competition

Our award-winning Malbec comes from the Stanton Vineyard nestled at an elevation of around 700’ in Red Mountain; with just over 5 acres of Clone 9 Malbec planted in one block. 

And forget all that “All Hail, Argentinian Malbec…” foolishness; this clone, Clone 9, was originally imported into California in 1989 as an effort to introduce known, verifiable, clones from France. Clone 9 originally hails from Bordeaux vineyards in the Gironde area; but we’ll leave it up to you to decide if it still retains its French accent. 

Oftentimes, Malbec is amazingly fruity and quite smooth; so smooth that it doesn’t need as much barrel aging as other varietals. In some cases, wineries will pull it from barrel in relatively short order. But we have a different philosophy, and this was barrel aged for a more extended period. All resulting in a smoother, softer effect and with a varietal like this able to stand up to any oak you throw at it, no overtly oak monkey business. 

Juicy and full of jam, this wine has dark fruit on the nose and blackberry, red plum, and smaller bits of vanilla, tobacco, dark chocolate on the palate. 

These grapes developed late, along with the Petit Verdot that year; waiting forever to reach the brix level we thought appropriate to pick, all along becoming more and more intense. We produced this wine with gentle processing, whole berry fermentation, virtually no sulfites added during fermentation, and we allowed it to fully finish in situ prior to pressing. Barreling was done in new Pennsylvania oak, coopered in France with toasted Argonne Oak staves.

You know, some folks are disparaging regarding Malbec, it is often relegated to the sorry lot of being “merely” a blending grape, much like Petit Verdot. 

But it shouldn’t be, for if you diss Malbec, you do it at your own peril. 

Red Mountain AVA
Stanton Vineyard