Dark and powerful, yet elegant, with a delicious core of crushed raspberry, blackberry and damson plum notes tightly woven with silky tannins. The minerally finish lingers on with layered flavors of wildflowers, melted licorice and spice box. Drink now through 2020. 1,250 cases imported.

Bright medium ruby. Utterly uncompromising aromas and flavors of blackcurrant, cherry pit, flowers and crushed rock. Savory, dusty and very light on its feet, with superb vinosity and clarity of flavor. Conveys an impression of strong saline extract and little in the way of easy sweetness. A wine of outstanding energy and class, finishing with a firm tannic spine, pungent minerality and uncanny subtle persistence. My recorked bottle was still great after 72 hours in the refrigerator.

The Bella Vista is always based on four hectares planted in 1910 and is normally the second vineyard harvested each year. The 2010 Finca Bella Vista is a pure Malbec from Lujan de Cuyo located at 980 meters altitude. Fermented in cement and aged for 16 months in new French barriques from the Mercurey cooperage, it has a sublime bouquet of blackberry, briary, woodland aromas and sous-bois that is all succinctly defined. The palate is medium-bodied with ripe, fine tannins surrounding a core of pure blackberry and wild strawberry fruit, interlaced by lemon rind and dark chocolate towards the controlled, refined finish. This is class from start to finish. Drink 2013-2020+.