2019 Zuccardi Q Malbec Valle De Uco Argentina 750 ml

Every release of Zuccardi’s velvety Q Malbec, we rifle through our notes, expecting the wine’s price to have caught up to its excellence. And every year, we’re left scratching our heads. With this 2019, Argentina’s preeminent winemaker pushes the boundaries of how much opulence and complexity he can pack into an under-$20 bottle.

Usually, a résumé with over 80 95-or-higher scores, multiple Wine & Spirits Top 100 Winery honors, back-to-back World’s Best Vineyard awards, and praise from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate as “clearly among the top wineries of the country,” will send a winery’s prices skyward. 

Not Zuccardi.

The 2019 Q is a master class in Mendoza silkiness and structure. The nose is stylishly layered with dark plum, black tea, cigar, and graphite. On the palate, dark fruit, cocoa, and herbs strut in perfect stride with leather and vanilla. Wine Spectator and Vinous awarded this 2019 dual 91-point scores, and Wine Advocate has been dazzled by the Q for years, calling it “incredibly good,” and wondering how bottles “at this price can have such precision and purity.” 

Labeled a Smart Buy by Wine Spectator at its $20 SRP, we’ve got it for an even smarter $18.99. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better Malbec for the price. 

We don’t recommend you think too hard about it. Instead, grab a case and spend your spring reveling in this unbelievable value. We’re not sure how much longer Zuccardi can keep releasing stellar wines at this price before the demand and notoriety push it higher, so we’re stocking up now. 

That value looks even better when you consider the attention that winemaker Sebastián Zuccardi gives each bottle. A Decanter Top 10 South American Winemaker, Zuccardi might boast the prestige of a world-renowned superstar, but he takes the hands-on approach of a boutique, tending to each vineyard and wine, whether $17 or $170, with painstaking care. 

Sebastián is at the forefront of a renegade crew who have been called “cement heads“ for eschewing new oak in pursuit of fresher, more site-specific wines that convey the region’s mineral-rich Andean terroir. The result is what Vinous calls “a modern take on Malbec,” a high-altitude wine with striking purity and freshness.

Any visitor to Zuccardi’s outpost 3,600 feet above sea level is immediately struck by the Andes mountains, towering over the vineyards in startlingly near distance. It’s from these high-altitude sites that the 2019 Q Malbec is assembled, with fruit hailing from Paraje Altamira at 3,608 feet in elevation, the surface dotted with whitish rocks, and Los Chacayes, at 3,280 feet, distinguished by its sandy loam. 

A mix of the aforementioned concrete tanks and unroasted oak barrels shape the bold purity of the fruit. Considering our price on a Malbec of such serious quality, we’re hoping a case lasts us a month. But at the rate they’re disappearing, we’re not counting on it.