06 La Posta, Malbec Pizzella Family Vineyard

This is the kind of wine that could move a plot along. If only Jack had slipped Miles a bottle of this in Sideways--he could've become a Sartre scholar instead of just a miserably lonely drunk (OK, maybe that's not that big a difference). "I am not drinking any fucking merlot!" "...got any malbec?" Odds are some of the merlots he so fuckingly detested had a dose malbec, anyway. The La Posta reds do start to run together--the bonarda's just as spicy and heavy-handed--but this malbec has gobs of glycerine-coated blueberry and blackberry fruit behind the tobacco, alcohol, and smoky, briary tannins. The subtle sandalwood-like French oak (mostly old) is loud, but balanced, adding texture without creaming out the juicy fruit. Barbacoa beef seemed fitting, both as a pairing and as a tasting note. Burgers and barbecue, spit-roasted whole buffalo, God kill something. Sometimes I wonder if Argentina is just a killing floor. If you come out at night beneath the stars in Mendoza, so peaceful, can you hear the squeal in the distance? Maybe Sideways isn't the right reference. The more I drink this wine, the more I think of Apocalypse Now.