Wine Reviews

Shows engaging aromas of slate, mountain herbs and fresh plum. This red’s pristine structure balances the plum and berry flavors against a saline edge, which lends a mouthwatering quality and lengthens the finish around black pepper notes and smooth-textured tannins.

The Agrelo single-vineyard 2018 Malbec Serenade is from vines planted in 1935. It feels quite classical—ripe at 15% alcohol and generously oaked after maturing in 225- and 600-liter French barriques, 66% of them new, for one year. They are moving to larger barrels and reducing the new oak, just to support the structure. This wine (and the rest of the single-vineyard reds) is not oaky at all; this is floral and aromatic, typical Agrelo. This is very open and balanced, with a round palate and round tannins. The deep gravels need old vines to deliver this quality. This has to be the finest Serenade to date.

The 2019 Malbec Single Vineyard Serenade hails from a vineyard planted on clay and lime soils in 1935 in Agrelo. Fermented with skins. Salmon pink in the glass. It has a Semillón-like nose. In the mouth, it has a good, fatty body and texture with a gentle, fruity white wine flavor and malic acidity.

Rich but fresh blackberries with dark chocolate, sandalwood with violet and graphite. Just a hint of prune that won’t bother. Full-bodied, ripe and juicy on the palate with firm, fine-grained tannins rounding out the fleshy black fruit. Juicy and pretty long.

A ripe, spicy nose with plenty of blackberries, graphite, violets and ink. Some sweet spices and walnut, too. Juicy and tight on the palate with dense and fine-grained tannins that extend to a long, spicy finish.