2013 Bodegas Cuarto Dominio Malbec, Uco Valley, Mendoza

This is Cuarto Dominio’s top wine, sourced from two particularly well-sited parcels in La Consulta vineyard, which lies at 980 metres’ altitude before a spectacular Andean backdrop. The combination of sun-kissed days and freezing colds nights delivers grapes that are both perfectly ripe and high in acidity. For the lucky drinker, this means bags of flavour, massive yet rounded tannins and, crucially, mouth-watering freshness.

An extraordinarily concentrated and complex wine, this is hard to resist now but with the faculties to improve over the next five or more years. Blackberry, dark chocolate and dried flowers begin a long procession of aromas, which – with time in the glass or decanter – become increasingly savoury in character. Don’t stop swirling until you get smoky bacon! Like many of Mendoza’s best wines, it finishes on a beguiling saline note. Memorable stuff.