The color is seriously dark black cherry red. The nose is excellent, ripe fruit, classic barrel aromas, and interesting spice, all nicely dark and brooding. This is a medium bodied wine with excellent balance and rich, extracted fruit flavors. It starts with ripe blackberry, licorice, and Dr. Pepper mixed with black pepper and exotic spices. The mid-palate offers sour cherry, vanilla, mocha, and orange zest. The tannins stay out-of-the-way and the acidity allows the Crios to be a sipping wine or a food wine (pot roasts, chops, or stews, actually use some in the stew). The finish is soft, but does last.
The Susana Balbo Crios Malbec 2017 rocks, I found it for a few cents under 10 bucks and it just kills at that price. I have sort of forgotten about Malbec lately, I put Malbec and Zinfandel in the same classification, meaning that both those red grapes can make awesome value-priced, drink-it-now wines, yeah, you can pay more for them both, but the value priced wines are highly enjoyable in their own right. And I have been on a Zinfandel kick and somehow forgot about how good Malbec can be. Well, Susana Balbo’s Crios is delicious and nuanced and balanced and all those good wine adjectives. I don’t think I will forget about Malbec again.
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