Postales del Fin del Mundo, Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec 2008

Here I am, drinking a wine from the end of the world. This is both true in geographic terms, seeing as the wine is from Patagonia, and it is also true as the winery is called 'Winery from the end of the world' (Bodega del Fin del Mundo). This Bodega is a fairly new venture, about ten years old, and they grow a variety of red and white varietals on 870 hectares of land. As this part of Patagonia is fairly dry, the vineyards need a computer controlled irrigation system - the water comes from 20 kilometres away and a complete water channel system had to be built for the irrigation. This apparently took two years, and the first vineyards were planted in 1999 - protected from the wind by a complex system of windbreakers. Scared away by all that technology? Well, let's have a look at the wine that came out of this...

This blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec, a gift from a friend, is, perhaps expectedly, of a dark, ruby-red colour. What comes next? You may expect a bouquet to blow out your nostrils from such a new world monster, but I have to disappoint you. I braced myself for a massive fruit (and perhaps oak) explosion, but it is all much more subtle. The world-end wine presents a very cool nose of marinated cherries, a vague woodland smell, a tiny dosage of red wine vinegar and something oscillating between cocoa/chocolate and raw red meat. There is also a little bit of ground pepper and wood, the latter in a distinctively non-intense way. Smelling this I cannot help myself, I want this wine to go into a cherry and red wine jus as pretty much all the components are already in there. As a very honest, plain-spoken wine, the Postales keeps the promise it made to your nose on your tongue too. It is very smooth, I would say almost too smooth. The wine is very pleasant to drink and certainly enjoyable, but it could have done with a little more character. Initially, I also found the finish a little underwhelming, but after a few hours the cherry-pepper flavour came through much better.

This is a wine that, I think, everyone will enjoy and that would make a good companion with various meats and the matching sauces, but that lacked that little something to really excite the wine snob. But boy is it smooth!