2017 Finca Decero Remolinos Vineyard Malbec Agrelo Argentina 750 ml

On the two-hour flight from Chile to Argentina, our plane bucked and rocked with turbulence, buffeted by winds swirling off the snow-tipped peaks of the Andes below. We don’t love flying, but our white-knuckle journey was justified by an extraordinary find—the Argentinian Malbec that everyone is talking about, a wine of cool-vintage freshness and lush, plummy fruit whose blockbuster quality defies its price tag.

The 2017 Finca Decero Remolinos Vineyard Malbec represents one of the best Malbec bargains anywhere in the world, was named a Smart Buy by Wine Spectator, and listed as one of the Top Values among the magazine’s rating of today’s best Argentinian wines.

The purity and elegance of this single-vineyard expression blew away our expectations, which were high to begin with, given Argentina’s renaissance. The nose overflows with ripe plum, cassis, mocha, baking spice, and lifted lilac aromas. Broad but supple on the palate, with plush tannins blanketing flavors of blackberry, black plum, and mocha, this release has New World opulence to burn. It’s a gorgeous Malbec that overdelivers on every count, and should pull value-minded shoppers towards a case-buy.

On this particular trip, our travel woes weren’t confined to a teeth-rattling flight. Not long after we landed and picked up the rental car, we were stopped at a checkpoint where our vehicle was searched (for produce, it turns out, due to a quarantine).

So the warm hospitality of winemaker Tomás Hughes was all the more appreciated when we showed up on the doorstep of Finca Decero, an estate set on a barren plain in Agrelo at 3,500 feet in elevation.

The bumpiness we endured in the air began to make more sense as Hughes explained that the site that produces the grapes for this wine is called Remolinos Vineyard. It’s named after the whirlwinds of dust that result when powerful winds cruise across this flat, lonely plateau, cleansing and refreshing the vines. High mountain soils of gravel, alluvial deposits, and sandy loam lend elegance to the expression, captured by sustainable farming in which every bush is tended by hand.

When we reached this wine while tasting through Finca Decero’s line with Hughes, we knew we had found our star to bring back to the States. Plush and precise, touched with spice and vanilla from maturation in French oak barrels, it’s a world-class wine offered at a weeknight value price.