Argentina Reserve Malbec 2007

Well, this is a mystery. I picked this up from Tesco’s in Calais a couple of weeks ago for very little money, and the entire internet appears to know nothing about it. Tesco’s online grocery store, and their wine arm, deny all knowledge. The label provides almost no information, short of mentioning that it was bottled at M44 6BD – A postcode in Manchester, home of Kingsland Wines and Spirits – “the premier independent supplier of wines and spirits in the UK”. The grapes, it says, were grown in the Mendoza region. The reverse label boasts, puzzlingly, that “prime shiraz grapes are selected from the Mendoza region at the foot of the Andes”, so not malbec at all, and says that “the wines are aged on oak” – note the “on”, not an “in” – no expensive French bariques here.

So, is it any good? Acceptable, I’d say. Just drink it and it goes down in a vaguely pleasant, full-bodied, deep dark red way. Swish it about a bit and it reveals aromas of pencil shavings and flavours of dank, mouldy flannels. One to take to a friend’s.