Le Vent Des Jours 2022 Cahors Malbec "Les Calades", Southwest France

Argentine Malbec continues its popular run with American wine consumers, most of whom don’t realize Cahors in Southwest France is the source of the variety.  Cahors remains one of France’s best kept secrets and one of its great values. 

After a wine career in Paris and some serious health challenges he overcame, Cahors native Laurent Marre returned to Laurent’s familial homeland.  Today he and his wife Nathalie farm 8 biodynamic hectares of vines on their 30-hectare, forest-surrounded, single plot on one of Cahors’ highest altitude, limestone sites. Their Malbecs are raised in concrete, amphora, and large old French oak barrels and foudres.  The estate’s produces several Malbec bottlings and I find “Les Calades” approachable, yet substantial enough to make it into a serious wine.  Laurent describes this bottling as the flagship of their range, “a pure Malbec with power and freshness that represents the king grape variety of our appellation on limestone, and the new generation of Cahors: more fluid, rich and balanced with a distinct and very present mineral and marine finish.”