2015 Fabre Montmayou Malbec Reserva 750 ml

Luján de Cuyo Tour de Force from Hervé Fabre

The previous 2014 vintage of this wine earned the highest-ever average member score for a wine under $15 from more than 1,000 happy buyers, selling out in a flash. This new vintage, described by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate as “Very good value,” the 2015 Fabre Montmayou Malbec Reserva, is the best-ever release under this label, earning 93 points from Descorchados, the leading South American wine publication.

In conjuring up vintages past, while reviewing the 2015 Reserva, Suckling exclaimed “Always outstanding.” The credit for the spectacular and consistent quality of this wine goes to Bordelaise transplant Hervé Fabre. Swirling and sipping the 2015, Fabre took us back to his first trip to Mendoza in the late 1980s. “At the time, everyone wanted to plant new vines at lower elevations that were easier to irrigate,” he said. “The thought was that the opportunity in Argentina was all about inexpensive labor and production costs. But when I was taken to the high ground of Luján de Cuyo and started walking the old vines, I saw things differently. We seized the opportunity and purchased every old parcel that came up for sale.”

High up in the foothills of the Andes, less than 15 miles out of town, a swath of land had been planted to Malbec almost a century before. The vines were head-trained, not trellised. Yields were small, naturally pushing the envelope on concentration. The cost of production would be much higher than in the flats, but the wines had the potential for distinction on a world stage. The years of unbroken adulation for Hervé’s Malbec among Wine Access clients — plus the 93 points from Descorchados, Patricio Tapia’s “bible” of South American (Argentina/Chile/Uruguay) wines, for this 2015 — show the world stage has proven Hervé right.