2008 Puro Uno Malbec Gran Reserva Mendoza

This project started in the head of Frank Baroudi over 30 years ago, while attending college at USC, Los Angeles. During his freshman year, Frank's roommate’s grandfather passed, and he being a connoisseur of all things fine, left him a 45,000 bottle wine cellar and a few hundred boxes of pre-embargo Cuban cigars to enjoy. The boys learned quickly about first growths as that was 90 % of the cellar and discovered the best of Lafite, Latour, Margaux, Petrus, Haut Brion & Y’quem – the great vintages – 29’s, 45’s, & 61’s. This was only 1976 and little did they know, they still had the 82’s to discover. Although Frank's buddy had a few extra years of exposure, Frank quickly caught up. He enjoyed concerts at the Hollywood Bowl with bottles of fine vintage Champagnes followed by magnums of ‘45 Petrus… not too tough to take. This was Franks's early exposure to the rarefied world of fine vintage wine and cigars that started his yearning to create his own extraordinary wines and cigars. At the time, Frank was in college to become an engineer and that is indeed what he accomplished. After five years at USC, he left with a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computers and went out to tackle the real world. Frank eventually worked for one of the largest computer companies in the world, had an amazing expense account and was extraordinarily successful at his job. Fast forward thirty years…Frank finally had the opportunity to realize his lifelong dream… to make incredible, world class wines by blending varietals that had never before been combined. Frank used the best grapes possible and considered the individual virtues of eachvarietal and how these attributes would be affected by combining them as he created his blends. By that time, Frank had been to all the well-known growing and production regions in California, France, Italy and Spain to learn the secrets of “wine making”. It all came together just over a decade ago when he went to investigate the Chilean and Argentinean wine culture. Frank discovered Mendoza, Argentina – a place that really turned him on. It had such an intriguing environment, with rich, complex fruit of amazing depth and quality and an economy that would not take millions of dollars to start a modest winemaking project. OUR TASTING NOTES: The Gran Reserva is a stunning example of what the most serious old vine Malbec can become when everything comes together the right way. Produced from a Single Vineyard located in Lujan de Cuyo. Lots of dark blackberry fruit, fig and dark spices with notes of toasty oak and some dark earthy highlights on the nose. A big and chewy wine on the tongue but with ripe round tannins big but still quite fresh and a long-layered finish. This wine should age for another decade or more in your cellar but it is starting to drink very nicely with a few hours in a decanter. TASTING DATE 9/12/18.