Goes well with: When it comes to wine pairing, we’d recommend Malbec alongside lean red meat or the dark meat from poultry. Top meats include duck, turkey or chicken legs, lamb, beef and pork. If bringing it along to a barbecue this season, we’d recommend serving alongside a blue cheese burger, as the tart fruit flavour works well with blue cheese – a great tip also if serving with a cheeseboard. The earthy fruit notes are a good complement to earthy vegetables too – think mushrooms, kale and potatoes.
Majestic Merlot
If you have often shied away from reds for fear of them being too dry, this is one of the best fruity wines to sample. Merlot grapes are a deep blue coloured grape from Bordeaux, but there is so much variety available with Merlot grapes grown in France, Italy, Chile, California, Australia and Argentina. This makes Merlot both a versatile wine and a versatile accompaniment to food, making it a safe option if wine pairing was the last consideration for your dinner party.
The taste: If you have always associated red wine with warming acidity and tart fruit, Merlot sits right in the centre of the red wine taste spectrum and can be described as juicy and sweet. Like Malbec, there are the base fruit flavours of raspberries and plums, but with a softer level of tannins (these are additional texture elements added to wine which give a drier flavour, such as oak, grape seeds or grape skins). So, a lighter and sweeter taste is presented.