Kaiken Estate Malbec

Tasting Notes Kaiken Estate Malbec

The nose offers aromas of ripe red fruit, plums, blackberries, cassis, tobacco, butterscotch, hints of mint, and toasted almonds. The taste is intense, with powerful yet ripe tannins, and simultaneously juicy and balanced. Deep purple color.

Wine & Food Pairing

This Kaiken Malbec pairs excellently with grilled red meats, game dishes, and cheese platters.

Additional Information

The fruit was hand-picked and then manually selected in the winery to ensure the quality of the final product. The must was fermented in small tanks under optimal conditions. Alcoholic fermentation and maceration lasted approximately 20 days. Only 40% of the wine was aged in French oak barrels for six months to enhance fruity aromas and achieve silky tannins. The wine is only lightly filtered.

Kaiken is the Argentine branch of the Chilean wine company Montes. They primarily produce red wine, with their Malbecs being powerful but more refined than most Malbecs from Argentina.

The Argentine Kaiken was founded in 2002 by the Chilean wine producer Aurelio Montes. They have three vineyards in Mendoza and one in Salta (for the Torrontès). The three vineyards in Mendoza range in altitude from 950 to 1250 meters. The vineyards feature pergola training, wire training, and gobelet (free-standing bush) systems. While there are minor differences in the soils, the base in all cases is an alluvial soil resulting from erosion of the Andes. Some of the vineyards are farmed biodynamically.

The wines are made in Vistalba in a beautiful classic property from 1920, purchased in 2007. The company in Argentina is led by Aurelio Montes Jr., who is also the head winemaker. 'Kaiken' is the Mapuche-Indian word for a Patagonian wild goose that regularly crosses the Andes Mountains, just as Montes crossed from Chile to Argentina.

Awards/Prizes

Wine Spectator April 2016 - 91 pts (2013)
Wine Spectator April 2016 - 87 pts (2014)