Kaiken, Ultra Malbec

This is truly rich, structured and delicious Malbec with a brooding power that delivers glass upon glass of generous warmth and dark flavours of plum, damson, coffee and cocoa. A must-try for Malbec fans, this will certainly please those of us who like well-balanced New-World wines, but will also open the eyes of Bordeaux drinkers and devotees of the modern European wine style.

This is big, full-bodied and tasty. Structured with fine tannins and a long finish, it is the quintessential reserva-style Malbec that is a shoe-in for lovers of large wines.

Kaiken is a really interesting winery; established by the Montes family (of the very famous Montes winery in Chile [possibly the benchmark Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon being Montes Alpha], which is actually just a stone's throw away over the Andes...), it is a winery that does things in a very considered if conservative manner, but that is no bad thing! Established in 2002, the winery was given one task by Aurelio Montes, which was to mirror the quality of winemaking that he had achieved on the other side of the Andes.

Set in Mendoza and with vines in the Uco Valley and specific plots in Lujan de Cuyo, the winery has access to the areas that have consistently produced the best fruit for decades. The Malbec vines are grown in even more specific zones and for the this Ultra range they are taken from very high-altitude vineyards: Vistaflores, which is 1,400 metres above sea-level; Gualtallary, which is 1,300 metres above sea-level; and Altamira, which is 1,100 metres above sea-level.

It's not that this means it's necessarily better than anyone else's, only that the quality of fruit is as good as it could possibly be: the winemaking then performs the alchemy and - pop - the results are in the deliciousness of the bottle in your hand. It appears to be simple... but there's nothing simple about doing the simple things well!

Oh and the label has a goldy-looking flattened v-shape. It's the profile of the Kaikenese geese from whom the winery takes its name - these indigenous geese fly high over the Andes to nest and are native to the south, in Patagonia. Can't help but think there might be easier spots to find shelter...