Terraza de los Andes Malbec 2023 Review

A Proper Midweek Steak Wine

I picked this bottle up from Majestic for £17 and straight away felt like it might be in my lane. High altitude Argentinian Malbec, decent producer and a wine that looked like it wanted a bit more than just being a jammy fruit bomb.

What I didn’t expect was just how aggressive it would be straight out of the bottle.

First Pour Panic

I opened and decanted the wine but had a quick slurp straight from the bottle before leaving it to breathe and honestly the tannins were massive. Proper teeth coating stuff.

For a second I thought I’d made the wrong choice entirely.

There wasn’t much fruit showing initially either. Everything felt tight, structured and a bit too serious for what I expected from a 2023 Malbec at this price point.

Thankfully, patience paid off.

After 50 Minutes in the Decanter

This wine changed dramatically with air.

The tannins softened beautifully from aggressive and drying into something almost velvet like, still with a bit of grip left to remind you the structure is there.

On the nose it moved into blue and dark fruit territory whilst in the glass the wine started showing blackcurrant with stem. There is still a slight edge to it, but not in a bad way. It keeps the wine fresh rather than becoming overly plush.

The most surprising part though was the finish.

Right at the end came this freshly picked ripe strawberry note that completely caught me off guard. Not something I expected from this wine at all, but it gave the whole thing lift and stopped it feeling heavy.

At this point I was enjoying it, but the real magic came with food.

Ribeye Was the Missing Piece

I paired this with a ribeye and suddenly everything clicked into place.

The tannins bound to the protein and softly melted away leaving this lovely savoury umami length that made the wine feel far more complete than it did on its own.

That slight stemmy edge I was getting before became less noticeable and the fruit felt rounder and more integrated. The finish also became noticeably longer.

This is one of those wines that genuinely comes alive with food. On its own it is good. With steak it becomes a completely different experience.

Final Thoughts

This still sits a few levels below those real wow bottles like Tignanello or Musar for me, but that is absolutely fine because this wine is not trying to be that.

What it does offer is a seriously impressive midweek steak wine for £17 and honestly that is hard to argue with.

The biggest takeaway for me is that this wine feels young. Very young. There is enough structure and balance here that I think a few years of bottle age could make this outstanding value.

For now though, this is a properly enjoyable high altitude Malbec that rewards patience, absolutely demands food and massively overdelivers for the price.