When I studied for the WSET diploma nearly two decades ago, we were taught that the homeland of Malbec was Cahors in South-West France. We’d sit at our stark benches on hard, floor-scraping chairs in the ice-cold classrooms of the WSET’s Bermondsey London school, watching with trepidation as rattling trollies of identical, label-less, numbered green bottles were wheeled in and passed down the tables, from trembling student to trembling student, each of us carefully trying not to pour too much (or pouring too much) wine in our ISO glasses. (Now that I come to think of it, I am quite sure that those green bottles may have been recycled Martini vermouth bottles, which begs the question: who was drinking all that Martini?!) We studiously sniffed and swirled, learning the rule that the ‘Black Wines of the Cahors’ could easily be differentiated blind from the wine-gum-fruity wines of Mendoza. That simple. All we needed to know. Candied fruit versus a balrog’s portcullis of tannins and fruit.
Ripe Malbec on the vine © Jérôme Morel
While Mendoza Malbecs have gone from strength to strength, outgrowing candied simplicity and turning into the graceful black swans of high-elevation wines, the same could not be said of Malbec’s players on home turf. For a long time, it seems, Cahors has lingered in this increasingly outdated rabbet: stubbornly demanding patience from consumers, most of whom no longer want or need to wait for wines to taste good; demanding storage space for long ageing from consumers who no longer have or want to make storage space for wines; making wines that need big, slow meat-rich dishes, even while many consumers are eating less meat-rich food. Cahors was ignoring a burgeoning group of wine lovers who valued drinkability over ponderosity. Cahors, it seemed, had become shackled by its own mythology. Perhaps this is the reason that we’ve tasted nearly five times as many Argentine Malbecs as we’ve tasted Cahors. And despite not being a personal fan of massive tannins, for some reason I seemed to have been the one person on the team to doggedly persist with tasting Cahors, while learning that there is nothing better than a swirl and spit of neutral, good-quality nut oil to clear the palate of brutish, tongue-leathering, tooth-blackening tannins …
Cold soak © Jean-Pierre Bessieres
However, in the last year or so, my dutiful dedication to suffering for the Cahors cause of monolithic tannins and impassable fruit has been disrupted. A recent tasting made me sit up, take a deep breath and clear the boards. There is change afoot. I was struck by a significant and very exciting trajectory towards freshness, elegance, ‘less-is-more’ winemaking, and a sharper focus on vineyard and fruit rather than on oak and extraction. Alcohols are lower. Tannins are lighter. Less grunge, less aggression, less brutality. I was suddenly tasting wines that defied the region’s reputation for heavily oaked, massively tannic, very extracted wines that need to be aged for many years before being drinkable. And yet these producers aren’t trying to Disney-fy their wines or emulate Mendoza Malbec. They’re seeking a brighter, fresher take while holding on to the unique identity of Cahors: mineral, medicinal, herbal, tea leaves, dark wild fruit, tannins with a long, smooth, bitter-chocolate groove.
Bringing in the juice © Jean-Pierre Bessières
I taste a renaissance. The ‘cool wines of the Cahors’?
Changes afoot… © Alain Auzanneau
The 38 wines below are in alphabetical order by producer (sur)name but you can re-order by vintage or score if you prefer.
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Famille Baldès, Du Clos Malbec 2021 Cahors
Full bottle 1,247 g. 100% Malbec, young vines. Picked early morning, destemmed, vinified and aged in stainless steel. No oak. Certified sustainable (Ecocert).
Fresh blackberry and plum fruit, quite herbal (perilla, fresh thyme). Modest with well-behaved, slightly astringent tannins. Just lacking a bit of length and depth. (TC)
13.5%
Drink
2024
–
2028
15.5
Dom La Calmette, Trespotz 2022 Cahors
Full bottle 1,231 g. In conversion to organic certification, but they also use biodynamic preparations. 90% Malbec and 10% Merlot from nine small plots of 30- to 45-year-old vines – total roughly 3 ha. Trespotz is the Occitan name of their village. Hand-picked, destemmed, maceration from seven to 14 days. No added sulphites until just before bottling. Aged in a mix of concrete tanks, stainless steel and large wooden vats. Unfined, partially filtered.
Tangy and possibly a little on the wild side (a nick of VA and venison-carpaccio bloodiness). Juniper and wild berries and everything on the edge. Lots of juice and fruit and spilling-over expression. Lovely tension and tissue-paper-rustling tannins. Great balance, although I’m worried that there is a tiny touch of mousiness, which may get worse with time …
Update, a few days later: the mousiness became untenable. I had to change the score. It’s a real issue. (TC)
13.5%
Drink
14
Full bottle 1,248 g. 75% Malbec, 20% Merlot, 5% Tannat. Farmed with full plant cover of the soil. Minimal treatments. Average age of vines is 40 years old. Mostly from the third terraces on gravelly clay-sand soils. The varieties are vinified separately. Destemmed, macerated for 15 to 20 days during fermentation. Aged for a year in vats before bottling.
Pomegranate and black tannic fruit and vanilla pod and wine gum. Coal dust. Tannins that are kind of manipulative in their quiet assertion. Tamari, black pepper, juniper, elderberry. Impeccable. (TC)
13.5%
Drink
2025
–
2034
17.5
Full bottle 1,406 g. 100% Malbec from a 7-ha plot of 35-year-old vines. Machine-harvested, machine-sorted and then manually sorted at the winery. Cold (8 °C) pre-fermentation and maceration followed by 28 days of fermentation and maceration at around 28 °C. Malo and ageing in barrels, one-third new, for 12 months.
Oaky. Vanilla and cedar. But the tannins are beautiful. Literally pulsing with muscle without being remotely dry. Intensely black-fruited. Like ink made from sloe berries. Graphite. A bit like the love child of Cab Franc and Saperavi. Classic with a modern sheen. (TC)
13%
Drink
2023
–
2030
16.5
Ch du Cèdre, Le Cèdre 2019 Cahors
Full bottle 1,655 g. Certified organic (AB, Ecocert). 100% Malbec grown on limestone scree and Mindel high terraces. Vines 30 to 50 years old. Spontaneous fermentation, 30 days. 24 months in foudre and barrel. Very low added sulphites, only at bottling.
I hate the bottle. It’s way, way too heavy. Why are organic producers happy to bottle their wines in carbon-intensive, energy-intensive, planet-poisoning heavy-glass bottles? It makes no sense to me! The wine, however, is good. The balance is exquisite, the crux of stern discipline and ripe-fruit expression. It’s a wine that delivers old-world Cahors savouriness with new-world Cahors finesse and clarity. The tannins are firm and dry and tea-leaf fragrant but not remotely astringent. The person/people behind this wine are thoughtful, precise, intentional and caring and it’s a beautiful wine – which is why I’m ending this tasting note with a direct request to them to reduce their bottle weights, please; your wine deserves that respect and so does the planet. (TC)
13.5%
Drink
2024
–
2033
17
Ch de Chambert Malbec 2017 Cahors
Full bottle 1,340 g. From 45-year-old vines on red-oxide clay and Kimmeridgian limestone. Spontaneous fermentation in concrete tanks. Post-fermentation maceration for 15 days. Spontaneous malo in 30-hl foudres and aged for 12 months in those foudres. Certified organic (Ecocert).
This is simply gorgeous. It’s silky and shining with energy, with deep-core red fruit, with that little special je ne sais quoi that some wines just have and you cannot put your finger on it. It’s one of those wines that you can say, ‘it tastes of cherries and cinnamon and girolles and camp-fire embers’, but that doesn’t capture this wine. It’s all those things but more than that: it’s a wine that has found its pole star. It pulses with focus, mission, purity of fruit. The tannins are endlessly long and endlessly elegant. Every bit of this wine comes together in an orchestra of voices, everything makes sense. (TC)
13%
Drink
2024
–
2035
17.5
Full bottle 1,351 g. 100% Malbec from 30-year-old vines. Family estate. Winemaker Benoít Aymard, who planted the plot that this wine comes from with his grandfather. Alluvial rocks and clay. Hand-picked. Destemmed, spontaneous fermentation in stainless-steel tanks. Punchdowns and pumpovers but no additives. 20 months in 400-litre French oak barrels. 5,500 bottles. Certified organic (Ecocert) and biodynamic (Demeter).
This is pretty stunning. As in: stop, do a double-take, re-taste, call someone over to taste, go back, reassure yourself that you are not imagining how good this is … I’d love to meet Benoít Aymard and walk his vineyards with him, because this is a special wine. I would love to be there and get a sense of where it comes from because everything about this wine seems to taste of place and belonging and synchronicity. A pleochroism of fruit, darkly chatoyant, dark-violet glister. Even the tannins have iridescence. It’s a glowing beauty with dark fruit but incredibly fragrant grace notes of peppery spiciness and lilac florals. As I said, stunning. (TC)
14.5%
Drink
2024
–
2035
17.5
Le Clos d’un Jour, Un Jour Sur Terre 2020 Cahors
Full bottle 1,297 g. 100% Malbec from a 6.5-ha vineyard on limestone clay, west-facing terrace. Hand-picked, destemmed, three days’ maceration before fermentation. All parcels are fermented separately for about four weeks. Aged for 18 to 22 months in 140- and 160-litre hand-made amphorae. Unfiltered. Certified organic (AB, Ecocert).
A big, big wine with ripeness turning to raisin and beef stock. Massive concentration and the alcohol is teetering on bitter, because it’s so high, but the catenary tannins are not over-extracted or dry and so they bring a certain grace. Nevertheless, this is a wine that many modern drinkers will shrink from and I think that the producer would do well to use vineyard practices that address those alcohol levels. (TC)
15.5%
Drink
2025
–
2035
€22 RRP
15.5
Clos du Chêne Malbec 2020 Cahors
Full bottle 1,272 g. 100% Malbec. Vines 25 to 30 years old. Maceration and vinification for 20 to 30 days. 12 months in oak barrels.
Another very refined Cahors Malbec clad in clinging, fine-grain tannins which gently and firmly bookend the fruit but allow fluid movement between start and finish. Peppery blueberry and wild-plum fruit, but more savoury than fruity, with a deep, cool timbre of sous bois. (TC)
13%
Drink
2024
–
2033
17
Clos la Coutale Malbec 2022 Cahors
Full bottle 1,167 g. 85% Malbec, 25% Merlot. 40-year-old vines over 70 ha grown on gravels, silicates and limestone clays. Fermented and aged in stainless steel and giant oak barrels for eight to 10 months. Certified organic (Ecocert).
This gem of a wine, with its mulberry and candied raspberry fruit in a cough-sweet wrapper, is a real delight. The tannins are silk-shift shiny and fine, and the fruit rushes through to fill every corner with juice and energy. Lithe and lively, showing the kind of modern, effortless balance that means this will taste as good now as it will 10 years down the line. Well done, Philippe and Sébastien Bernède! A really useful wine for large gatherings. And GV. (TC)
13%
Drink
2024
–
2034
£14 Hic! Wine Merchants
16.5
Cosse Maisonneuve, La Marguerite 2020 Cahors
Full bottle 1,314 g. Malbec on red clay (no limestone). Two and a half years in oak barrels. Certified organic (Ecocert) and biodynamic (Demeter).
This just feels like a lockbox of inscrutable structure containing promises of beautiful fruit. It’s not that it’s overwhelmingly tannic; the tannins are as muscular as a racehorse but they’re supple and ripe and gleaming with polish and power. It’s just that, right now, the wine, even at four years old, is structured to hold the drinker off rather than draw them in. There is beauty folded into that powerful mineral-iron scaffolding, and I think that this wine will reward patience if stored well for another couple of years (at least). (TC)
14.5%
Drink
2026
–
2035
€65 RRP
17 +
Ch Eugénie, Réserve de l’Aïeul 2020 Cahors
Full bottle 1,355 g. 90% Malbec, 10% Tannat. From the oldest vines on the estate, planted by their grandfather (aïeul means grandfather in local dialect). 20 to 25 days of maceration, 16 months in new 250-litre oak barrels. Certified sustainable (HVE).
Freshly-turned-earth aromas. Cool, fragrant and long. The silky, black-berried fruit has a sinuous glow and wonderful minty, thyme-scented lift. A touch of anise, fennel seed, iris. This is very, very elegant. Slightly aloof in its carriage, but this only serves its magnetism. (TC)
14.5%
Drink
2025
–
2035
17.5
Ch Famaey, Cuvée F Malbec 2023 Cahors
Full bottle 1,338 g. Fermentation in ovoid cement tanks, maceration 24 days, ageing for 10 month in ovoid cement tanks. Certified sustainable (HVE).
Intensely ripe, concentrated fruit. Black cherry, damson, blackberry jam, liquorice, pomegranate molasses. Massive concentration – almost painful at this stage! Dramatic concentration, ripeness and sweetness. The tannins feel young, very muscular, a little rebellious, pushing against the fruit, kicking against the rules. Lots of wonderful components, if somewhat unruly and undisciplined at this stage. (TC)
14%
Drink
2027
–
2035
16.5 ++
Ch de Gaudou, Renaissance Malbec 2020 Cahors
Full bottle 1,259 g. Organically farmed since 2016. 100% Malbec, 50-year-old vines on gravel and clay; a vineyard called Chemin d’Orgueil at the top of a hill at 125 m, bordered by woodland on two sides. Winegrower Fabrice Durou farms with full green cover under the vines. Sulphite-free, spontaneous fermentation, natural malo. 18 months in wooden casks. Certified organic (AB, Ecocert).
Classic Cahors aromatic and flavour profile, but the tannins have modern gentleness and silky texture. It smells of loam and mushrooms scuffed at the foot of pine trees. There’s deep ‘inky blue’ to the wine, like the midnight sky at new moon. Pencils and mossy stones. Intensely savoury, earthy, fluid. And so fresh! It looks like this might be GV, going by prices in the US of slightly older vintages. (TC)
13.5%
Drink
2025
–
2035
17
Ch Haut-Monplaisir, L’Envie Malbec 2022 Cahors
Full bottle 1,330 g. 100% Malbec. Destemmed. 25 days’ maceration. 12 months in oak barrels. No added sulphites. Certified organic (Ecocert).
Chocolate, cocoa and coconut. It’s almost as if some of those oak barrels were American … although somewhat less coconutty on the third day of being open. Blackcurrant and blueberry and sort of talc-perfumed. It’s pleasant but a tiny bit flat in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. As if it runs out of steam. I’ll re-taste over a couple of days. (TC)
14%
Drink
2024
–
2026
16
Ch de Haute-Serre, Georges Malbec 2019 Cahors
Full bottle 1,258 g. 100% Malbec from 60 ha of vineyards on Kimmeridgian clay limestone. Temperature-controlled fermentation, aged for 12 months in 50% 400-litre barrels, 30% tanks, 20% 7-hl amphorae. 12–18 months in bottle before release. Certified sustainable (HVE).
Magnificently pure, clear cherry and strawberry fruit on the nose, transcribing directly onto the palate. Every note of this wine is drenched with bright, ripe red fruit; every note is pure and clear; every note is singing. Tiny slips of menthol and pink peppercorns and wild rose hips, then a long, cool, soft sigh of anise. Exquisitely transparent tannins. Remarkable elegance for Cahors, especially at this young age. This is an aria to its place. (TC)
13%
Drink
2024
–
2035
17.5
Famille Ilbert, Au Cerisier 2022 Cahors
Full bottle 1,294 g. 100% Malbec. A family property of 23 ha started when Jean-Pierre Ilbert decided to leave the co-op in 1998 to bottle his own wines. This wine is made from a 1.5-ha plot of 40-year-old vines. Certified organic (AB, Ecocert).
Wild red-turning-blue-turning-dark fruit, haunting, off-beat, moving to the pulse of tannins that feel like the length of very tall trees in a very old forest. A brush of texture that feels like when you pick a mushroom from between the old, hunkered roots of a tree and put it in your mouth. Raw. The taste of blood in your mouth. Like the hunt. Like dawn. Like a bit lip. (TC)
13%
Drink
2024
–
2032
17
Fabien Jouves, Les Escures 2023 Cahors
Full bottle 1,328 g. 100% Malbec, 25-year-old vines on Kimmeridgian limestone, 350 m. Hand-picked, spontaneous fermentation for 30 days in concrete tanks. Aged in concrete tanks for six months. Less than 30 mg/l total sulphites. Certified organic (AB, Ecocert) and organic (Demeter).
Usefully low alcohol on this spritely, skinny (for Cahors), raspberry and wild-rose Malbec. It’s definitely on the ‘natural wine’ spectrum, but it’s as clean as a whistle. Floral, floaty tannins. White-peppery fragrance on the long finish. An unusually delicate Cahors which shows that this region is capable of a much wider spectrum of styles than most people think – all importantly without losing the essential Cahors identity. This is a little darling of a mouthful which would be wonderful on a hot summer afternoon or, equally, with a platter of glistening charcuterie by the fire in winter. (TC)
11.5%
Drink
2024
–
2026
16.5
Ch Lagrezette, Chevalier du Chateau Lagrezette Malbec 2021 Cahors
Full bottle 1,207 g. 12 months in French oak barriques.
Black pepper fragrant. Dark blueberry fruit and tarragon. Really fragrant. Even the tannins carry, lift and soar. Menthol, herby breath. Polished. (TC)
13.5%
Drink
2024
–
2028
£25 RRP
16.5
Ch Lagrezette, Cuvée Marguerite Massaut Malbec 2020 Cahors
Full bottle 1,402 g.
Liquorice, bluebells, violets and a smattering of Sichuan pepper. Fresh-dill freshness and a touch of caraway, a touch of cumin. Savoury. Spices that seem to come, saturated, from dark, luscious juices of the grapes rather than barrels. Fine-grained tannins. Purring. (TC)
14.5%
Drink
2024
–
2035
£53 RRP
17.5
Ch Lagrezette Malbec 2020 Cahors
Full 1,255 g.
Minty, elegant, elderberry dark and gently inky. Extraordinarily elegant. Understated, herbal, dark and beautifully withheld. (TC)
14.5%
Drink
2024
–
2030
£45 RRP
17
Ch Lagrezette, Cuvée Dame Honneur du Château Lagrezette Malbec 2020 Cahors
Full bottle 1,336 g.
Blackberry, blueberries and a thicket-full of tannins. This Lagrezette cuvée always seems to be a bit pugnacious and bolshy compared with the others. It was a little less bellicose after it has been open for a couple of days, so it’s most likely a Cahors Malbec that needs time (and chunky food). Ink-dust minerality. Stony heart. Robust and muscular but not rustic. (TC)
15%
Drink
2026
–
2036
£90 RRP
16.5 ++
Ch Lagrezette, Paragon Massaut Malbec 2019 Cahors
Full bottle 1,569 g.
Stony, gravelly, blue-fruit, blue-stone, blue-jazz, indigo-blue flavours and tannins. Rustle-tussle, rustle-hustle, dark-stream, moss-and-ink calligraphic texture. Tannins so embedded into the weft of the wine that they feel like folklore – the midnight-blue gravel and fruit, the voice, telling the stories, by the fire, in the shadows. Immaculately controlled power; an iron fist held back; resolute, restrained. (TC)
15%
Drink
2025
–
2037
£160 RRP
17.5
Ch Lagrezette, Le Pigeonnier Malbec 2019 Cahors
Full bottle 1,654 g.
Violets and vanilla. Bruise-blue, liquorice-seamed fruit. Orris root and crushed gravel. A dense, cocoa-and-coal-dust wine rippling with ultra-glossy, stallion tannins. Formidable balance, despite the high alcohol. Built for the long term – there is no rush to drink this whatsoever. (TC)
15%
Drink
2027
–
2040
£230 RRP
17.5 +
Ch Lamartine, Tandem Malbec 2022 Cahors
Full bottle 1,202 g. Certified organic (Ecocert).
Violets, purple inkiness and a smudge of mulberries. Tannins like a twist of liquorice in crackly foil. The sweetness of blueberry candy. Ticking all the Malbec boxes. (TC)
13%
Drink
2024
–
2026
£14 Freds Drinks
16
Ch Lamartine Malbec 2021 Cahors
Full bottle 1,169 g. 90% Malbec, 10% Merlot. Aged for 12 months in two-thirds cement, one-third barrique.
Famille Gayraud seems to have bridged the worlds of Mendoza and Cahors with this mostly Malbec cuvée – dark juice and jam, jazzy tannins, a little claw of Cahors in the bite of bitterness and back-pull of ever-so-slightly gnarly tannins which turn soft as putty in the wash of fruit. And a little black sign-off of medicinal elderberry, just in case you thought it was too easy. (TC)
13%
Drink
2024
–
2031
£20 RRP
16.5
Ch Lamartine, Prestige du Malbec 2021 Cahors
Full bottle 1,168 g.
More red fruit, more tang, more tobacco and cigar than their other two cuvées tasted alongside. There’s an autumnal fragrance to the wine, sort of wood-fire-smoke-through-russet-leaves, and then the sweet bite of kumquat, of sour cherries steeped in black tea, of rain-soaked loam. Rust and russet and rosehip. Very much the Malbec of the Cahors, but without the rusticity of tannins or thickset blackness. (TC)
13.5%
Drink
2024
–
2033
£20 RRP
16.5
Ch Lamartine, Cuvée Particulière 2020 Cahors
Full bottle 1,169 g. 90% Malbec, 10% Tannat from vines that are 40 to 60 years old on 50% clay limestone, 30% siliceous clay, 20% limestone scree across three terraces. Fermented in stainless steel for 30 days with temperature control and punchdowns. Aged for 12 to 14 months in 5,000- to 9,000-litre oak vats (50%) and one- to three-year-old barrels (50%).
You could use this wine for WSET studies: what does (or what should) a modern Cahors look like? Spicy plums, a touch of black tea, some matcha herbs tucked deep into the long, dark, velvet-and-coir tannins pulled gently tight like a drawstring. The acidity is the heartwood of the wine, steeped in damson ripeness and intensity. This is exceptionally good, because it pulls together modern approachability with transparency of fruit and place without losing its essential ‘Cahor-ness’. And it has length, balance and delivers pleasure. Well-played, team Château Lamartine. (TC)
14%
Drink
2024
–
2035
17
Ch Les Croisille, La Pierre Malbec 2023 Cahors
Full bottle 1,329 g. 100% Malbec. 40-year-old vines at 300 m on the Causse of Cahors, limestone slopes. No herbicides, grass cover between rows. Fermented in small open-top vats. Spontaneous fermentation, pigeage at the start and very light pumpovers. 15 days’ maceration. 10 months in two vats of 10 hl and 20 hl carved from the limestone rock of the Lot. TA 4.56 g/l, pH 3.26, total SO2 < 10 mg/l. Certified organic (AB, Ecocert) and biodynamic (Demeter).
Dark aubergine purple with a fuchsia rim and fruit as plush and vivid and dark to match. But also so outrageously fresh that it smells as if it might only have just stopped fermented in the vat. So fresh and sweet and purple and just exactly like a bucket of mulberries stirred by a handful of just-sharpened pencils with plenty of puddles of spilled fruit. Underneath all that exuberant fruit is this kind of glorious honesty of plant-earth, leaf-stem-fungi fragrance that feels as if it comes from deep under the ground and makes your mouth water. This is so, so, so young that it hasn’t even worked out how to not spill itself out of the glass in puppyish enthusiasm of being. I’d wait to the end of 2025 to open it. (TC)
13.1%
Drink
2025
–
2030
16.5 +
Métairie Grande du Théron, Parcelle des Origines A822 Malbec 2021 Cahors
Full 1,345 g. 100% Malbec from 38 ha of south-facing vineyards, 35-year-old vines on limestone and clay. Fermented in cement tanks, 25 days’ maceration, cap punching at the start, 18 months in French oak casks. Certified sustainable (HVE).
Ink-scored plum, black cherry and blackberry fruit – masses of fruit but all contained within the conoid of tannins. Masses of acidity but glossy in its own ripeness. A strong frame of oaky spice exerting just a fraction more influence than I’d like, at the moment, but please note the ‘at the moment’. This is a wine that is effortlessly weaving modern Malbec with traditional Cahors, and it’s a wine in which place and fruit both have a strong voice. There is harmony here, a frisson of jazz energy, of rock humour, of punk defiance, and then just melody and more melody. Beautifully done. (TC)
13.7%
Drink
2025
–
2035
17
Ch Nozières, L’Élégance 2020 Cahors
Full bottle 1,407 mg. 50-year-old Malbec on Les Terrasses de Rieux, a gravelly slope over clay limestone. Three weeks of maceration. 18–24 months in new oak barrels.
Spicy, peppery. Terse tannins and ferrous minerality. At first, it’s difficult to get past all that minerality and stone and attitude, but when you do, there is charm to be found. Violets, blackberries, blackcurrant bud and juniper. Gentle fruit peeping tentatively from behind the front-up of tannin-mineral structure. A long, fine-ground finish. (TC)
14.5%
Drink
2025
–
2035
16.5
Lionel Osmin, Coeur de Malbec 2023 Cahors
Full bottle 1,370 g. 100% Malbec. Hand- and machine-picked in October. Pre-fermentation cold maceration. Fermentation maceration for about three weeks. Malo and ageing in tanks.
Tobacco leaf and cassis. Tannins like a file of letters in thick manila envelopes etched with dark, dark purple ink in cursive letters. Classic and modern and just a little bit of rock and a little bit of Mozart but also something broad and sumptuous. Very classy. (TC)
13.5%
Drink
2025
–
2033
17.5
Pech Chagut, Parcelle 1233 Malbec 2022 Cahors
Full bottle 1,340 g. 100% Malbec from 16-year-old vines in Prayssac (Parcel 1233 – hence the name). Limestone soil. Hand-picked, destemmed, fermented in 10-hl and 15-hl French oak casks. No added sulphites before or during fermentation. Aged in the same casks for 12 months. 2,450 bottles produced. The wine is made by two friends, Sébastien Sigaud and Alexandre Gélis, who met during their oenology studies in Toulouse. Certified sustainable (HVE).
Gorgeous blackberry ripeness on the nose and then a roar of equally gorgeous, fresh, sappy, liquescent fruit on the palate. This is splashy with fruit. Blackberry, raspberry, red plum. Little squiggles of pencil-lead minerality and aromatic herbs. The tannins seem to have climbed into the fruit and curled up like cats in a deep-velvet armchair. Completely ready to drink now, and presumably this will age quite nicely but I really wouldn’t worry about that too much. This is a wine to enjoy on its generosity of fruit. (TC)
14.2%
Drink
2024
–
2030
17
Didier Pelvillain, Côt Côt Côt 2022 Cahors
Full bottle 1,402 g. 100% Malbec from the clay-limestones causses (plateaus) de Cénac and siderolithic slopes of Théron. No added sulphites. Certified sustainable (HVE).
Fresh, leafy and quite light. Lightly brambly red fruit, dried tomato skin, tomato-vine herbaceousness, and tannins that feel and taste like chewing on a pencil (thoughtfully, in a good way!). Modest. (TC)
13%
Drink
2024
–
2027
16
Dom du Prince, Rossignol Malbec 2022 Cahors
Full bottle 1,353 g. 100% Malbec from a single vineyard (less than 2 ha) on a limestone-clay plateau at 350 m. South-facing. 35-year-old vines. Maceration for 25 days, manual punchdown of cap, low-temperature fermentation. 24 months in egg-shaped vats.
Cassis and charcoal, juicy fruit coated in very dry tannins. Savoury. Stony. Masses of graphite and wet-black-slate minerality. Very tannic. But so fresh! (TC)
13.5%
Drink
2026
–
2035
€20 RRP
17
Ch de Rouffiac, En Jarre 2022 Cahors
Full bottle 1,311 g. 100% Malbec from Duravel, on a siderolithic plateau (iron-rich sandy clay over limestone). 45-year-old vines. Destemmed, crushed, fermented in temperature-controlled vats with 25 days of maceration. Aged for 12 months in small Limoges black-earth amphorae. 3,200 bottles produced. Certified sustainable (HVE).
Smells dark and inky and tastes of mulberries and balsamic blackcurrants. Chewy and moody and glowering, the fruit tucked away and glimmering in the cave of tannins. It feels as if the alcohol is higher than 13.5%. A sense of tightly reined-in energy. I’d cellar this for another three years at least. (TC)
13.5%
Drink
2027
–
2034
16.5 +
Clos Troteligotte, K-Nom Malbec 2022 Cahors
Full bottle 1,205 g. In conversion to organic certification; biodynamic farming. 85% Malbec, 15% Merlot from a single plot on a plateau of Kimmeridgian iron-rich limestone. 30-year-old vines. Spontaneous fermentation, sulphite-free vinification (only added before bottling, total SO2 16 mg/l), short maceration, cement vats. 10,000 bottles.
A wine that has the tell-tale tang of low-added sulphites but is clean and fresh and full of fruit. The tannins are light but sinewy, the fruit is lean and herb-twisted, the acidity tastes of hibiscus tea. Unfortunately a faint hint of mouse when it was first opened developed into full-blown hamster cage after about three days. (TC)
12%
Drink
14.5
Ch Vincens, Origine 2020 Cahors
Full bottle 1,351 g. 100% Malbec from St-Vincent Rive d’Olt, Luzech. The Vincens family have 44 ha of vineyards. Machine-picked. Fermented in stainless steel with three to four weeks of maceration and punchdowns of the cap. 10 to 15 months in oak barrels.
Masses of lip-smacking, mouth-watering, jubilantly ripe fruit, almost luscious but the wine hasn’t lost its Cahors identity and muscular edges. Sweet blackberries, a nudge of cassis, rimmed with kohl smudges of coal and mushroom compost. The tannins are strong but laden into sweet submission by the fruit. A very complete wine that is modern but very much of its place. A really good ambassador for converting new Cahors fans. (TC)
14.5%
Drink
2024
–
2032
17
For more information on Cahors, see The Oxford Companion to Wine and the map in The World Atlas of Maps as well as our tastings note database.
All the images are supplied by and published here thanks to the kind permission of Vins de Cahors. The main image, of Cahors vineyards in autumn colour, is credit to Jérôme Morel.
Article de Tamlyn Currin publié sur www.jancisrobinson.com
@jancisrobinson @tamlyncurrin
