Wine Blogging Wednesday, Value Red from Chile: Our little Secreto

December 10th, 2008 by Vinagoth | Posted in Cheap and Red, Chile, Malbec |

After Mrs. Barbarian looted and pillaged her way through Plan A, I hid Plan B away and out of her reach. Thankfully Mrs. Barbarian is diminutive in stature and cannot reach high places around the house, and all I have to do to save anything precious from her is slide it onto a top shelf somewhere. Not exactly the best place to store wine, but it only had to stay there a day.

In vino veritas indeed. I do not know what family dinners are like at your household but I know our table becomes a wonderful place in the presence of a good wine. Monday night when I opened this bottle was one of those instances. The Mrs made some red-peppery-garlicy pasta while I sauteed my infamous broccoli, in and of itself also a little stiff on the garlic end of the scale. It was a modest meal, made in a wonderful harmony by the two of us around our stove. Midway through cooking I opened the wine and took my first taste. Mmmmmm. The Mrs takes her share and makes the same happy noises.

At the table the wine flows, the garlic grows, and the conversation wanders off along tangents of life, love, history, markets, travel, economics, cultures, dreams, recreation, desires, and goals. A mundane meal made truly wonderful by the presence of a great wine!

So what is this wine? Let’s just say it is our little secret.

Between you and me, this Viu Manent Secreto 2007 Malbec is worth your efforts to find. Wait, what’s that? A Chilean Malbec? Indeed it is! From the Colchagua Valley. Malbec doesn’t have to be from Argentina, (or indeed France, though you’ll hardly ever find that word on a French bottle, it is inside plenty of them.) “But why Vinagoth, why?” you ask… “Why choose a Malbec to write about on Wine Blogging Wednesday when Chile has so many wines it specializes in, including one of your favorites!?”

You already know the answer to that, I’m a Barbarian, I follow no rules!

I will say this Malbec is one of the finest values I’ve ever enjoyed. The cost? $9.99. Yep, you read right. NINE DOLLARS AND NINETY-NINE CENTS! A sawbuck minus a penny. A tenner and it is yours.

Mrs. Barbarian even violated long-standing household wine protocol and poured the last glass for herself! That is how good this wine is. To further underscore the point when the bottle was gone and I reached into the wine cabinet for an encore I grabbed a Napa Cab… an Oak Knoll District Cabernet Sauvignon.. a >$40 wine that I felt would be the only thing that could top the Chilean Secreto. Both the Mrs & I looked at each other in abject disappointment. “This is not as good as the first one” said the better half of the Barbarian household. I agreed. The conversation sank like the proverbial lead balloon. Dinner ended on a whimper. Think about that. Here is a cheap red wine that blew the doors off a Napa Cabernet. Mind you that cab could use some years in the bottle, and I plan on doing so. But still.

Nuestro secretito. Our little secret. GO BUY THIS WINE.