The one bottle here you might already know.
Malbec, from Mendoza, with a comic book on the label. The furthest-travelled thing on the shelf and the easiest to love.
- GrapeMalbec
- GrowerMatías Riccitelli
- PlaceLas Compuertas, Luján de Cuyo · Argentina
- Up to1,100 m
Knowing what you like is not a lesser skill.
Everything else on this shelf comes with a small speech about a grape nobody has heard of. This one does not need it. If you drink wine at all, you have met Malbec.
There is a certain kind of wine list that would make you feel unadventurous for ordering it. Not this one. Liking a thing because you like it is the entire basis on which we buy every bottle here.
Order it because you know it. Then, if you feel like it, ask what else is open. No pressure either way.
A famous father, and a son who went and did it himself.
Matías Riccitelli is the son of Jorge Riccitelli, one of the names that made Argentine wine famous in the first place. That is a heavy surname to start with.
He started his own winery in 2009 anyway, at Las Compuertas in Luján de Cuyo — around 1,100 metres, the highest corner of that district — on roughly twenty hectares of old, ungrafted vines. Three years later Wine Enthusiast named him Winemaker of the Year.
He also buys from small growers scattered along the foot of the Andes, some as high as 1,800 metres. Altitude is the whole trick in Mendoza: hot sun, cold nights, thick skins, and a red that stays fresh instead of going jammy.
Hey Malbec is picked by hand and raised partly in concrete eggs, partly in old French oak — old, so the wood does not shout over the fruit.
The one for the pizza with something cured on it.
Dark fruit, violets, a twist of black pepper, and tannins that are soft rather than drying. It is generous without being heavy, which is a harder trick than it sounds.
Put it next to salami, ‘nduja, sausage, anything with fat and spice. The wine has enough weight to stand up and enough freshness to clear the palate before the next slice.
It is also the bottle most likely to survive being poured for six people with six different opinions.
Seven thousand miles, for a slice in your other hand.
Mendoza is about as far from Larnaca as anything on this shelf gets. Everything else came from somewhere around this sea.
It is here because Daniele drank it and wanted it, which is the only rule the wine list has. Cypriot mountain, Sicilian volcano, Greek north, Austrian farm — and then, from the other side of the planet, a Malbec with a cartoon on the front.
Come and order the one you know.
Get the Malbec. Get a pizza with something cured on it. Nobody here is going to suggest you be more adventurous. We stop at a hundred pizzas a day — the earlier you come, the better your chances.
The things people actually ask.
Q.Who makes Hey Malbec?
Hey Malbec is made by Matías Riccitelli, an Argentine winemaker who founded his own winery in 2009 at Las Compuertas in Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza, at around 1,100 metres. He is the son of winemaker Jorge Riccitelli and was named Winemaker of the Year by Wine Enthusiast in 2012.
Q.What does Hey Malbec taste like?
Hey Malbec is a dry red wine with dark fruit, violet aromatics and a note of black pepper, with soft ripe tannins. It is hand-picked and aged in concrete eggs and used French oak, which keeps the fruit forward rather than woody.
Q.Why does altitude matter for Malbec in Mendoza?
Vineyards in Mendoza sit high against the Andes, roughly between 900 and 1,800 metres. Hot days ripen the fruit while cold nights preserve acidity, producing red wines that are concentrated but still fresh rather than heavy.
Q.Where can I drink Argentine wine in Larnaca?
Filomena Pizzeria Napoletana, at 1 Aristotelous in Larnaca, Cyprus, pours a short list of wines from small growers, including Hey Malbec from Matías Riccitelli in Mendoza, Argentina, alongside Neapolitan pizza. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 6pm to 10pm.