Impenetrable ruby with dark edges.  Prettiest nose this year.  Just so pretty.  I could smell it forever and ever.  Just smell it.  One of those wines–and we all have a few of these stashed away in our memory-banks–which you would continue to buy if you found out tomorrow you could never drink wine again.  You would buy this wine and just smell it.  Just smell it…. A floral so delicate and heavy-handed.  A spice so fragile and concentrated.  Fruit swells hardcore, rich black cherry with a breath of burnt rubber and racing clutch.  A collaboration between Rothschild and Catena, this 50% Malbec masterpiece just SINGS.  Recommended by my friend David Wilson of Grape Encounters Radio at his new local brick-and-mortar wineshop.  Actually, he didn’t recommend, he pre-tasted me, insisting I try this wine, and all I needed was one whiff of the nose and I knew it was something to be dealt with seriously.  Barnyard, urine-stained fresh hay brings a subtle earthy-point to the otherwise dearthly-concentrated fruit late-nose/early entry.  Chocolate and caramel dominate.  In the mouth, EVERYTHING shown in the nose transfers seamlessly to the tongue–accompanied with ample acid and early tannin.  I don’t want to over-think this wine: it is what it is and it is wonderful and an absolute MUST-TRY.  Brilliant chalky tannins escort the still-vibrant fruit out the exit.  Wow.  Love this wine.
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2012 AMANCAYA Gran Reserva Bodegas Caro Bec/Cab 54/46  14-5