You could make the argument that my journey into the wine industry began with Argentinian malbec. Even before I was pouring wines in restaurants, taking orders and learning the table numbers, it was the first wine with which I became truly familiar. It was the black bottle with the white label that lined our supermarket shelves, and what people on the telly with expensive haircuts and thick resin bangles poured into large glasses.
Back then, Argentinian malbec was everywhere – and it still is. It has been a hero grape for Argentina since it was introduced to the country in 1868 by a French agronomist named Michel Pouget. Although vines have been cultivated in Argentina since the Spanish colonisation in the 1600s, originally to produce wine for mass, it was in 1853 that the president tasked Pouget with invigorating his nation’s winemaking.
