Malbec

Malbec is the clearest example in wine of a grape being transformed by moving continents. In France it is Côt, a minor Bordeaux blending variety and the principal grape of Cahors in the south-west, where it makes a dark, firm, austere wine historically known as the black wine.

In Argentina it became something else. Brought to Mendoza in the mid-nineteenth century, it found conditions that suit it far better than its homeland: high altitude — vineyards run from 900 to over 1,500 metres — intense sunlight, very low rainfall, and cold nights. The result is fruit that ripens fully without losing acidity, and a wine that is plush, deeply coloured and generously fruited rather than austere.

The flavour runs to blackberry, black plum and black cherry, with violet, cocoa and a sweet-spiced character that oak amplifies. Tannins are ripe and velvety rather than firm, and the wine is approachable young — one of the main reasons for its commercial success.

Altitude matters within Argentina as much as between countries. The Uco Valley, highest and coolest, gives fresher, more floral and more structured wines than the warmer, lower vineyards of Luján de Cuyo and Maipú.

In France it remains frost-prone and susceptible to rot, and the 1956 frost that devastated Bordeaux accelerated its decline there.

Cahors has since begun marketing itself as the grape's original home, with mixed success against a country that has made the name its own.

Altitude is the single most useful thing to read on an Argentine label. At 1,000 metres the wines are plush and fruit-forward; at 1,400 in the Uco Valley they are tighter, more floral and more structured, with noticeably higher acidity. The difference between two Malbecs from the same producer at different elevations can be larger than the difference between two producers.

The grape's thin skin makes it vulnerable to frost, hail and downy mildew, which is part of why it struggled in damp Bordeaux and thrives in the dry rain-shadow of the Andes, where fungal pressure is close to nil and irrigation is by snowmelt.

Cahors offers a genuinely different wine from the same variety: darker, more tannic and more savoury, with iron, graphite and dried herbs where Argentina gives violet and cocoa. Anyone who finds Argentine Malbec too soft should try the French version before concluding the grape is not for them.