It was an easy enough idea - Let's have a wine tasting party.  Acutally a South American Malbec tasting party.   Husband and I had bought a couple of Malbecs at our favorite wine shop.  After the third bottle in as many weeks we realized we really couldn't compare something tasted 3 weeks apart.  Argentinian and Chilean Malbecs are generally cheap with most under $20 and many under $10 so why not buy several and open them all at once.  Well that's alot to drink for one reason.  Hence the idea for a party.  But how does one do a wine tasting party at home?  I mean at a winery they have the bottles you taste a bit and you buy or not.  But just wine doesn't make much for a party - unless you really drink alot!  I searched the web for info on a wine tasting party but couldn't find much if anything to help.  So we'd have to wing it.  The guests were easy we invited friends who love wine but what should we serve besides wine?

After many possible plans what we decided was to get together relatively early (4:30pm) to have the tasting (6 wines).  Then a couple of hours later (7pm) serve dinner.  They key was not to have too much for dinner and to serve something with the wine. That way we would not be starving by dinner time and not stuffed after dinner.  To go with the wine we went to our favorite Cheese Monger and got four cheeses to match our Malbec.  The cheese monger helped us wonderfully picking mostly Spanish cheeses to match the S. American Malbecs.  We also had some veggies, bread and crackers to keep the cheese course from being too heavy. 

Besides not being to heavy dinner had to be easy because after tasting six wines neither Husband nor I would want (or be able ) to cook anything elaborate.  So we had a pork roast cooked on the grill with a fruit salsa that was prepared earlier in the day, roasted beans and sweet potatoe fries.  Dessert? Well not that we really needed anything but just to top things off we had sliced mixed fruit (from our neighborhood farmers market) with home made whipped cream.  

The event was a hit as were the wines...

Below is a listing of the Malbecs we tasted in our order of preference. Some were bought at The Wine Club  and others at BevMo.  The first place wine was $30 (nope nobody new the price when judging) and all others were under $15.

1. Luca Vintage 2004 Altos de Mendoza, Argentina
2. Finca El Portillo 2005 Valley de Oco Mendoza, Argentina
3. Tamari Reserve 2003 Mendoza, Argentina
4. Montes Reserve 2004 Colchaqua Valley, Chile
5. Filus Reserve 2003 Lunlunta Valley, Argentina
6. Alamos 2004 Mendoza, Argentina

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