About The Wine
The 2023 Frankland River Malbec is Medium bodied and has a good density of vibrant and fresh, sweet dark berry fruit flavours. Its gentle acidity provides freshness and lifts the wine and balances those sweet fruit characters. The generous mulberry fruit flavours, so typical of Malbec, are complemented by the gently drying tannins and contribute to its good length of flavour.
Comments from Wine Buyer Steve
A cracking Malbec from Frankland River! Savory and structured featuring an intense core of dark berry and plum fruit supported by fine yet chewy tannins and balanced oak. The perfect red for sitting around a fire pit on cold winter nights. A bargain from WA Cellars at $15.00 per bottle. Winery price is $28 per bottle.
Score – 92/100 WAC Gold Medal.
What is Malbec?
Malbec was a relatively forgotten red wine variety in Australia until about a decade ago, but thanks to Argentina there is now a great deal of interest in the variety.
Malbec’s home is the Cahors Region in South West France. In that region it makes rich dark wines referred to as “black wines”. These reached legendary status in pre-Phylloxera times, but the Cahors region has taken a long time to recover from that disaster. Only in recent decades have the Cahors wines regained more than local recognition.
The variety is certainly less common in Australia than it was a couple of decades ago, but there is some evidence that it may be making a comeback. Until the 1980s Malbec was used as blending material with Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz or both. The role of blending partner with Cabernet has been supplanted by Merlot.
Malbec goes right back to the start of the Margaret River wine making story. It was blended with Cabernet in the region’s first red wine made by Tom Cullity of Vasse Felix. In a nice piece of symmetry Vasse Felix’s current Winemaker Virginia Wilcock has reintroduced Malbec into the blend with Cabernet in their greatest red ‘Tom Cullity’.
Today it’s the fourth most widely planted red varietal in Margaret River after the ‘big three’ of Cabernet, Shiraz and Merlot.
About The Producer
The winery that produces this beautiful Malbec is at the top of its game and is one of the most awarded wineries in the Great Southern Region of WA. The winery is rated a perfect 5 red stars by James Halliday in his 2025 Wine companion. The winemaker is a legend and has done 35 vintages in the Great Southern region and is held in high regard in WA.
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