Amayan Malbec 2019

Belhara Estate’s Amayan Malbec 2019 is one of those wines you taste and immediately think someone made a mistake with the price. Then go back and buy a case.

Hand-harvested in Tupungato and Altamira, which includes some of the highest vineyards in the world, Amayan Malbec is aged in French oak for a year. Up there in the mountains, the grapes retain an exhilarating freshness, and the chalky and gravelly soils impart an elegant minerality. The result is not the kind of Malbec that’s so dense you could stand a spoon in it or need to serve it alongside a steak as big as your leg to enjoy it; Amayan is a refined red that you can sip all night long and for absolutely any occasion.

The family-owned Belhara Estate – named after a mountain in the Basque country – can be found nestled in Argentina’s Uco Valley, beneath blue skies and surrounded by the sharp teeth of snow-capped mountains. What makes this winery so exciting – apart from the astonishing value for money the wines offer – is its owner and winemaker. Stephen Huse studied in Bordeaux and then did stints at fine wine heavyweights like Château Margaux, Mouton-Rothschild, Harlan Estate and Almaviva – Concha y Toro’s collaboration with Baron Philippe de Rothschild. That’s some pedigree, and goes some way to explaining why Belhara Estate’s wines are so good. The rest is down to the quality of their parcels in premium appellation such as Altamira, Gualtallary and Tupungato, some of which contain vines that are 80 years old.