This week's wine has a rich violet colour and an earthy black pepper aroma. On the palate there's fruit flavours of cassis integrated with soft tannins with an oaky background.

This is a full-bodied wine ready to drink now or to mature for a further two or three years. It's 13.9 % alcohol with balanced acidity. A wine of some complexity that makes an excellent match with beef.

The wine was produced by Ricardo Santos in Mendoza the large high altitude region in N.W. Argentina. The vineyards named La Madras are at an altitude of 2800 feet where the grapes receive 300 days of sunshine each year.

This is very much a terroir wine being the result of a combination of the microclimate, the soil-a mixture of sand and fine top soil and of course the water from the snow melt of the Andes. This all suits the malbec grape, which often has some claret grapes blended in.

Malbec is fast becoming Argentina's flagship grape and wins prizes at international shows. It's known as cot in the Bordeaux area and auxerois in Cahors, 70% of their dark wines must contain malbec. In France plantings of malbec have been reduced to less than 5,000 hectares due to flowering problems whereas in Argentina the problem doesn't exist and the vineyards devoted to this grape now cover 30,000 hectares. It's also to be found in Australia and the U.S.A.

This bottle came from Majestic where in a mixed case of 12 it would be £8.49 but if you include 2 they would be only £6.79.