2019 Fabien Jouves Amphore

93 POINTS

Mike Bennie - The Wine Front

From the producer who brought us the cuvee ‘You Fuck My Wine’ comes an amphora malbec of Cahors. A relative newcomer to Cahors, Fabien Jouves has been a natural wine grower-producer over several decades, working with older parcels of vines and building up speed with experimentation and diversity of winemaking approaches. There’s is extended skin maceration here, no additions, no sulphur, no fining or filtration. The importer, a sophisticated outfit in Mezzanine, The Fine Wine Specialist, supplied no LUCs or RRPs (or any information) for the wines. Sorry. There’s also no alcohol percent listed anywhere on the bottle, but a 7.4 standard drinks is detailed. Curiously fresh and vibrant wine imbued with plenty of quintessential malbec character but also a little terracotta-minerally-earthiness in the mix. That’s the 101. Characters suggest dark plum, blackberries with brambles, brined black olive and some sour, dark cherry rolling through. There’s quite a lot of what you’d call richness to this wine, plush texture as well, but a hustle of bristling acidity, sour in a great and complementary way, brings liveliness and a sense of play to the glass. It’s a moreish red, compelling for curiosity but also depth and detail. Importer: Mezzanine