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![Tikal Amorio [Malbec] Mendoza 2012 750ml](https://www.saratogawine.com/files/images/cached_thumbs/4f/4fd98e930950ec08375d703fecba0609.jpg)
2012
$28.84
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750ml
Bottle:
$29.94
Bold and muscular, this red boasts heavy slate, smoke and spice notes up front, which are inlaid with cassis. Unfurls...
More Details
Winery
Tikal
Vintage: 2012
2012 has, so far been a positive year for wineries around the world. While it may be a little too early to speak of the wines being made in the northern hemisphere, European and North American wineries have already begun reporting that their harvesting season has been generally very good, and are predicting to continue with the kind of successes they saw in 2011. However, 2012 has been something of a late year for France, due to unpredictable weather throughout the summer, and the grapes were ripening considerably later than they did in 2011 (which was, admittedly, an exceptionally early year). French wineries are claiming, though, that this could well turn out to be advantageous, as the slow ripening will allow the resulting wines to express more flavour and features of the terroir they are grown in.
The southern hemisphere has seen ideal climatic conditions in most of the key wine producing countries, and Australia and New Zealand particularly had a superb year, in particular with the Bordeaux varietal grapes that grow there and which love the humidity these countries received plenty of. Also enjoying a fantastic year for weather were wineries across Argentina and Chile, with the Mendoza region claiming that 2012 will be one of their best vintages of the past decade. Similar claims are being made across the Chilean wine regions, where Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon had an especially good year. These two grape varietals also produced characterful wines on the coastal regions of South Africa this year.
Varietal: Malbec
Malbec grapes have a beautiful deep and dusty purple color, and can now be found growing in abundance in many different countries. They thrive most successfully in hot, dry southern climates, a long way from their home in native France. However, whilst many Old World wineries had and continue to have a lot of success with this flavorful grape, its susceptibility to rot and weakness against cold and damp meant that its usage began to dwindle in the countries such as France whilst it grew in the New. Malbec's thick skins lend it strong tannins, something which allows the wines produced from these grapes to hold their distinctive, astringent and full-bodied character. They also tend to be packed full of plummy, fleshy fruit-forward flavors, making them an interesting and complex grape for single variety wines, as well as an ideal grape for blending and aging.
Region: Cuyo
The region of Cuyo has been internationally associated with fine Argentinian wine for several decades, and has a wine history which stretches back centuries to the time of the original Spanish settlers, who sought areas in which to plant imported grape vines for sacramental wine production. The region contains several of Argentina's most renowned and widely appreciated provinces, including the Mendoza, La Rioja, San Juan and San Luis, and the mountainous nature of this arid region provides an ideal environment for vineyard cultivation. As the mighty Desaguadero River snakes its way between the Andes, it deposits plenty of important minerals in the soil, which allow grape varietals closely associated with the Argentinian wine industry – such as Malbec – to grow to a perfect level of ripeness. As such, even in the driest areas of the Cuyo region, flavorful and fruit-forward wines are produced in impressive amounts.
Country: Argentina
Anyone who has been the Mendoza area of Argentina may be surprised to find that this is one of the primary wine regions of the country, now comfortably sitting as the fifth largest producer of wine in the world. The Mendoza is an incredibly dry and arid desert, which receives as little as two hundred millimeters of rainfall per year, and supports very little life at all. We can thank the ancient technologies of the Huarpes Indians for Argentina's current booming wine trade, as they managed to irrigate the region by digging channels from the Mendoza river, thus creating an area which had enough access to water with which to grow vines. Not only this, but the grape which Argentina primarily uses for their wines – Malbec – actually flourishes in such conditions, as it is less likely to suffer from the rot it so often finds in the considerably damper regions of Europe it has its origins in. Such expertise and foresight has resulted in Argentina being able to produce high quality wines of both red and white types, with Malbec, Bonarda and Cabernet Sauvignon dominating the vineyards for red wines, and Torrontés, Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc making up for most of the white wine produced there.