Malbec: From the Black Wine of Cahors to Argentine Icon

Malbec is the grape the wine world knows as Argentine, yet it was born in southwest France. Its rise is a story of a variety that found a second home and outgrew its first.

Today about seven in ten of the world’s Malbec vines grow in Argentina.¹ But the grape began an ocean away, as the dark, tannic red of Cahors. This is how it crossed over.

The black wine of Cahors

Malbec’s ancestral home is Cahors, in southwest France, where it produced a wine so deep in color it was called vin noir, the “black wine of Cahors.”² Prized in the Middle Ages by clergy and royalty, it was also one of the permitted grapes of Bordeaux. Cahors remains the one French region where Malbec is still the dominant grape; its top wines must be at least 70% Malbec.²

1853: a Frenchman carries it to Mendoza

In 1853, the French agronomist Michel Aimé Pouget brought Malbec cuttings to Mendoza, at the request of Argentine authorities building a modern wine industry.³ Those were the country’s first Malbec vines. High on the eastern slopes of the Andes, with intense sun, cool nights and dry air, the grape ripened to a plusher, riper style than it ever had in France.

The fall, and the rise

Malbec nearly disappeared twice. A catastrophic 1956 frost gutted the vineyards of Cahors, and in France the grape faded to a minor blending role.² In Argentina it was long grown for cheap, high-volume wine, and much of it was torn out during the economic troubles of the 1980s. The turn came in the 1990s, when a new generation of producers cut yields, climbed to higher-altitude sites, and bet that Malbec could make world-class wine.¹ They were right.

An Argentine icon

Malbec is now Argentina’s flagship, and the country holds roughly 70% of the world’s plantings, with France a distant second.¹ Since 2011, the industry has marked World Malbec Day every 17 April, the date tied to Pouget’s 19th-century mission.³ A grape once exiled from the French mainstream now defines a country’s wine.

Read more

• Torrontés, Argentina’s signature white
• Luigi Bosca and the making of Argentine wine
• A brief history of Bordeaux wine

References

1. Argentina holds roughly 70% of world Malbec plantings; the 1990s high-altitude quality revival: The Oxford Companion to Wine, 4th ed., “Argentina” and “Malbec”; Wines of Argentina; Catena Institute of Wine. ↩
2. Malbec’s origin in Cahors (the “black wine”), its place among the Bordeaux varieties, the 1956 frost, and the Cahors minimum of 70% Malbec: The Oxford Companion to Wine, “Cahors” and “Malbec”; J. Robinson, J. Harding & J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes (2012); Berry Bros. & Rudd. ↩
3. Michel Aimé Pouget bringing Malbec to Mendoza in 1853; World Malbec Day (17 April, since 2011): Wines of Argentina; Catena Institute of Wine; The Oxford Companion to Wine. ↩

Want to read more? Try these books

The Oxford Companion to Wine Jancis Robinson (ed.)

The Story of Wine Hugh Johnson

Ancient Wine Patrick E. McGovern

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