Homer’s ‘Wine Dark Sea’

Long before Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. changed their name, Malbec had lost its cool. It was no longer a grape that had anything unique to offer—save for that electric purple-blue color that gave me one more clue in a blind tasting—there was nothing more to that the Homerian dark-tinted rich fruit core. Not even Cahors, with an added benefit of earth, could help in resuscitating it. To be fair there were a few producers that made me pause when generalizing about Malbec, yet they would fill the glass so seldom they were like Halley’s comet in effect. It wasn’t that I was looking for the next hip thing either, but every time someone offered me a glass of Malbec it felt like a reminder that it should have been my last glass (…fool me twice, shame on me). Homogenized. 

Looking for inspiration, recently, I found an interesting bottle from Lo-Fi that had been discounted heavily by the retailer. Worth a gamble.

Mike Roth’s Lo Fi project—it’s local—works similarly to those earnest Loire Valley projects of quasi-natural winemaking that can yield exceptional beauty. The aim of Lo Fi is to express a wine that showcases more grape than winemaking as they eschew additives and there is little to no manipulation in the cellar.

I uncorked the wine, and began to analyze its appearance, which offered that peerless blue-ish purple in my Bordeaux stem. The aromatics were tilted to a darker set of fresh-picked berries, violets and there was a subtle earthy aroma… but otherwise the wine was unabashedly primary.

On the palate the wine was more akin to one of my favorites at our restaurant—La Grange Tiphaine. That is to say, closer to a Loire Valley expression of Malbec (Cot, as it is known there), than the imitable Southern Hemisphere examples. Medium-bodied with great acidity and more freshness of fruit that followed the nose. The wine was perfectly suited for the Wednesday that I opened it.

If you were looking for something big and concentrated then you should continue your search. But if you were looking for something that can genuinely bridge the gap between Old and New World Malbec, then this would be an apt selection.