2015 Durigutti “Familia” Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina
91 Points, Wine & Spirits
Tasting Notes
Héctor and Pablo’s top bottling is their “Familia” Malbec. This modern, concentrated release originates from two heirloom-quality vineyards in Maipú (Lunlunta) and San Carlos (La Consulta). In order to add complexity and depth, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Syrah were blended into the cuvée in small amounts. Grapes were fermented with native yeasts and the wine was neither filtered, fined or cold-stabilized.
“This has plenty of black currants, plum liqueur, creme de cassis, tar, vanilla, and a touch of tobacco. Full body and deliciously juicy tannins, but this is also polished and very much dialed in. There’s a driven line of acidity throughout, and the finish is fruity, chewy and structured. A blend of Malbec, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon. This is worth getting your hands on.” – James Suckling
Specs
Vintage: 2015
Varietal Blend: 80% Malbec, 6% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, 4% Syrah, and 4% Petit Verdot
Appellation: Maipú and San Carlos, Mendoza, Argentina
Barrel Regime: 20 months in French oak
Alcohol: 13.9%
Production: 250 cases
What’s Included
2-bottles:
2x 2015 Durigutti “Familia” Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina
Case:
12x 2015 Durigutti “Familia” Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina
Hector and Pablo were born in Mendoza, the cradle of wine, and were raised together. Their childhood and their home were always connected to a sensorial world, with aromas, ingredients, and flavors that, over time, motivated them to choose the path to become enologists. As adults, they would find these familiar memories and similar passions. Since 2002 they have been dedicated to their project as a small family winery. Today the brothers have evolved to form the new generation of winemakers, leading an evolutionary change in Argentina’s viticulture. With that same spirit, the Durigutti brothers craft their wines and have started to write their own history, a family legacy, in a chosen place where they live and work daily with dedication.
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Lab Rat reporting, Friday the 13th 2023 the year of our jason.
•The Adult Grape Juice:
Durigutti Familia 2015, from Mendoza, Argentina.
I’m instantly excited. Argentina still produces some of the best Malbecs at (still, sort of) really great value prices. And it’s always great to have Malbecs on hand in case half your guests would like Cab and half would like Merlot.
shakes fist They’ll drink Malbec and they’ll like it! (and they actually do)
Also an excellent wine variety to gift. You probably already know this and more.
I digress.
Mine came wrapped in paper (free gift wrap!), and has the top of the bottle sealed in grey unobtainium as demonstrated in the above picture. It was easy enough to knife off the heavy bottle. This (sealed bottles), believe it or not, has been an issue before in my domicile. It was around 60 degrees F at the time of the pouring.
•The Look:
Rich dark purple. So dark it begins to stare back at you. Hard to tell from my Leibovtiz pic, but light only creeps through around the edges.
Decent legs. A beautiful wine that makes me more anxious to dive in.
•The Nose:
Gothic Manchester berry jam, and cedar with 4 initials of you and your highschool crush with a + carved between them encircled in a heart. Deep but not exactly strong smelling for the legs.
Smells, uhm, fancy.
•The Shutupanddrinkitalready:
Three sips- seems a tiny bit poindexter-stiff at first. The next couple sips I pick up chocolate, and big fruit.
More oaky notes I didn’t pick up on the nose. Also getting some clove I did get with the cedar nose. It tastes like an expensive wine that is still ‘fun’. Over time the complexity comes out and gets more jammy. The, checks bottle, 14.6% alcohol did creep up on me.
Excellent finish that lingers nicely.
This is a fantastic blend that I’ll just call a Malbec. While this isn’t one of the cheap value Malbec’s and more a black tie affair, I think it’s worth it. For what it’s worth, I won a football bet for the NCAA championship and will be cashing it in on a case of these. BTW, if you don’t do casemates bets yet, you aren’t living.
•The Bonus round:
You can take the letters “Durigutti Familia” and rearrange them to spell “A Güd Fruit Militia”. Cheers.
I love how Casemates always gives us a respite through the long Dry January with a shipping notification that we’re ratting! Seriously guys, you’ve become our oasis through a long month and it’s much appreciated! So, as you can imagine, I was happy to get an email from Alice the other day. I was also jazzed because temperatures are moderate and I was really looking forward to a glass of wine!
UPS knocked on the door a day later and I opened the box to probably the most impressive presentation I’ve seen in a Casemates offering. A beautiful bottle wrapped in printed tissue paper. I loved the silver wax seal covering the cork.
I need to talk about the handsome presentation of this bottle and this wine. The bottle shows like an expensive French cab. I know the wax is not everyone’s favorite but from some reason it always gets my taste buds up for what lies within.
I put the bottle in the wine cooler and started to plan dinner. I am pretty familiar with Argentinian wines which tend to be dark and bold. We’re dieting right now, hence the Dry January. But I planned something I thought would work with a big Argentinian: meatballs in sauce with ricotta paired with a nice salad.
I was eagerly anticipating my first drink in 12 long days all day. Dinner was ready and my partner was on her way home from work so I decanted the bottle and gave it a few swirls and let it sit.
When I poured the wine into the decanter I saw a nice, inky dark purple wine. As it was tumbling down it reminded me of a nice Jumilla I haven’t had in ages. Between the impressive bottle and dark wine, I was wondering if it was going to be too big for our simple supper.
When she texted that she was close by, I poured a couple of glasses and plated up dinner. This wine has some nice viscosity, there were plenty of legs.
The nose was a bit muted, in my opinion. I got a hint of oak, followed by the alcohol. This bottle was marked 13.9% by the way. Next sniff, I also got a whiff of limestone and some faint bramble and oak. The decanter sat for almost an hour before the first pour. The second glass came after dinner, by that point it had been opened a couple of hours. The nose had opened up a bit at that point. In addition to the above I could smell some prunes and a hint of lavender.
First taste was similar to the nose, muted, but in a good way. This is very drinkable. It’s bold and dry, but not overly so. Smooth, but you can taste the tannins. The winemaker was obviously trying to offer a big but drinkable wine. Next few sips and I got Zante currants along with a hint of smoke with some faint berries and a hint of the aforementioned lavender on the palate. I found this wine to be a tad bit acidic, but in a nice way.
This is a pleasant wine, perhaps well suited for steaks on the grill paired with a green vegetable in the summertime. Maybe not quite as big and bold as I was expecting, but I can appreciate what I think they were going for and I found it to be well done. If you like smooth but complex easy drinkers this is right up your alley.
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: tax and shipping are not included in savings calculations).
2015 Durigutti “Familia” Malbec - $70 = 15.55%
From the importer website (don’t think this is mentioned in the offer…in bad need of coffee, think it might be because of the 15.9 wine last night, or maybe the Reaper in the tacos, or maybe both, but my machine still warming up)
“Fermented in New French oak barrels with their tops off with 2-3 punch downs per day then 100% of the wine is aged in the same French oak for 20 months. Unfined and unfiltered”
Alcohol: 13.9% | TA: 5.45 | Residual Sugar: 2.45 g/l | pH: 3.72
That 91 point note from Wine & Spirits:
Brothers Hector and Pablo Durigutti began making wine in Mendoza in 2002, and acquired their first vineyard in 2007. This wine is a regional blend of malbec (with small amounts of syrah, petit verdot, bonarda and cabernets sauvignon and franc) that began fermentation in concrete egg, finishing malolactic fermentation in new French oak. Bottle age makes it feel sleek and polished, with some earthy, herbal flavors showing through in the velvety finish. Jonathan Eichholz of NYC’s The Modern found it perfectly balanced to please an entire party: “It’s a nonmalbec drinker’s malbec, but also a malbec drinker’s malbec.”
A few other notes such as the one above mentions a splash of bonarda in the blend, but who cares right?
@kaolis And also fwiw the tasting note in this offer from Mr. Suckling is for vintage 2012, he does however mention aromas of spiced cherry, ripe black plum, dried mushroom, chocolate and hazelnut in this 2015…
The 2013 ‘Reserva’ was a really solid wine, we finished the last of that case in 2021 and it was still drinking great. Honestly even the last bottle was tight and needed some decant. It was a steal around $12/bottle for the case. This sounds pretty solid from the rat reviews.
Anyone in Denver want to split? I’m happy with 4 - 6 bottles.
Interesting that the casemates picture of the bottle is completely different than the labrat picture of the bottle. I guess the casemates folks were sent the wrong marketing shot?
@jhkey@kaolis I saw that too, mine was definitely 13.9%. It was printed dot-matrix style on the back of the bottle. Maybe the other rat had a different lot at a higher abv?
@free2day33611 If you want to base your purchasing on the tastemakers, then yes, you should be concerned.
If you want to base your taste on what this site has done really well, labrats and previous vintages chiming in, then you should heed their advice. After all, they actually tasted this wine versus a blanket number from a person for an entire country?
2015 Durigutti “Familia” Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina
91 Points, Wine & Spirits
Tasting Notes
Specs
What’s Included
2-bottles:
Case:
Price Comparison
Not for sale online, $804/case MSRP
About The Winery
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Feb 6 - Tuesday, Feb 7
2015 Durigutti “Familia” Argentinian Malbec
2 bottles for $74.99 $37.50/bottle + $4/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $379.99 $31.67/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
Lab Rat reporting, Friday the 13th 2023 the year of our jason.
•The Adult Grape Juice:
Durigutti Familia 2015, from Mendoza, Argentina.
I’m instantly excited. Argentina still produces some of the best Malbecs at (still, sort of) really great value prices. And it’s always great to have Malbecs on hand in case half your guests would like Cab and half would like Merlot.
shakes fist
They’ll drink Malbec and they’ll like it! (and they actually do)
Also an excellent wine variety to gift. You probably already know this and more.
I digress.
Mine came wrapped in paper (free gift wrap!), and has the top of the bottle sealed in grey unobtainium as demonstrated in the above picture. It was easy enough to knife off the heavy bottle. This (sealed bottles), believe it or not, has been an issue before in my domicile. It was around 60 degrees F at the time of the pouring.
•The Look:
Rich dark purple. So dark it begins to stare back at you. Hard to tell from my Leibovtiz pic, but light only creeps through around the edges.
Decent legs. A beautiful wine that makes me more anxious to dive in.
•The Nose:
Gothic Manchester berry jam, and cedar with 4 initials of you and your highschool crush with a + carved between them encircled in a heart. Deep but not exactly strong smelling for the legs.
Smells, uhm, fancy.
•The Shutupanddrinkitalready:
Three sips- seems a tiny bit poindexter-stiff at first. The next couple sips I pick up chocolate, and big fruit.
More oaky notes I didn’t pick up on the nose. Also getting some clove I did get with the cedar nose. It tastes like an expensive wine that is still ‘fun’. Over time the complexity comes out and gets more jammy. The, checks bottle, 14.6% alcohol did creep up on me.
Excellent finish that lingers nicely.
This is a fantastic blend that I’ll just call a Malbec. While this isn’t one of the cheap value Malbec’s and more a black tie affair, I think it’s worth it. For what it’s worth, I won a football bet for the NCAA championship and will be cashing it in on a case of these. BTW, if you don’t do casemates bets yet, you aren’t living.
•The Bonus round:
You can take the letters “Durigutti Familia” and rearrange them to spell “A Güd Fruit Militia”. Cheers.
@ecue this is the greatest lab rat ever
I love how Casemates always gives us a respite through the long Dry January with a shipping notification that we’re ratting! Seriously guys, you’ve become our oasis through a long month and it’s much appreciated! So, as you can imagine, I was happy to get an email from Alice the other day. I was also jazzed because temperatures are moderate and I was really looking forward to a glass of wine!
UPS knocked on the door a day later and I opened the box to probably the most impressive presentation I’ve seen in a Casemates offering. A beautiful bottle wrapped in printed tissue paper. I loved the silver wax seal covering the cork.
I need to talk about the handsome presentation of this bottle and this wine. The bottle shows like an expensive French cab. I know the wax is not everyone’s favorite but from some reason it always gets my taste buds up for what lies within.
I put the bottle in the wine cooler and started to plan dinner. I am pretty familiar with Argentinian wines which tend to be dark and bold. We’re dieting right now, hence the Dry January. But I planned something I thought would work with a big Argentinian: meatballs in sauce with ricotta paired with a nice salad.
I was eagerly anticipating my first drink in 12 long days all day. Dinner was ready and my partner was on her way home from work so I decanted the bottle and gave it a few swirls and let it sit.
When I poured the wine into the decanter I saw a nice, inky dark purple wine. As it was tumbling down it reminded me of a nice Jumilla I haven’t had in ages. Between the impressive bottle and dark wine, I was wondering if it was going to be too big for our simple supper.
When she texted that she was close by, I poured a couple of glasses and plated up dinner. This wine has some nice viscosity, there were plenty of legs.
The nose was a bit muted, in my opinion. I got a hint of oak, followed by the alcohol. This bottle was marked 13.9% by the way. Next sniff, I also got a whiff of limestone and some faint bramble and oak. The decanter sat for almost an hour before the first pour. The second glass came after dinner, by that point it had been opened a couple of hours. The nose had opened up a bit at that point. In addition to the above I could smell some prunes and a hint of lavender.
First taste was similar to the nose, muted, but in a good way. This is very drinkable. It’s bold and dry, but not overly so. Smooth, but you can taste the tannins. The winemaker was obviously trying to offer a big but drinkable wine. Next few sips and I got Zante currants along with a hint of smoke with some faint berries and a hint of the aforementioned lavender on the palate. I found this wine to be a tad bit acidic, but in a nice way.
This is a pleasant wine, perhaps well suited for steaks on the grill paired with a green vegetable in the summertime. Maybe not quite as big and bold as I was expecting, but I can appreciate what I think they were going for and I found it to be well done. If you like smooth but complex easy drinkers this is right up your alley.
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: tax and shipping are not included in savings calculations).
2015 Durigutti “Familia” Malbec - $70 = 15.55%
From the importer website (don’t think this is mentioned in the offer…in bad need of coffee, think it might be because of the 15.9 wine last night, or maybe the Reaper in the tacos, or maybe both, but my machine still warming up)
“Fermented in New French oak barrels with their tops off with 2-3 punch downs per day then 100% of the wine is aged in the same French oak for 20 months. Unfined and unfiltered”
Alcohol: 13.9% | TA: 5.45 | Residual Sugar: 2.45 g/l | pH: 3.72
That 91 point note from Wine & Spirits:
Brothers Hector and Pablo Durigutti began making wine in Mendoza in 2002, and acquired their first vineyard in 2007. This wine is a regional blend of malbec (with small amounts of syrah, petit verdot, bonarda and cabernets sauvignon and franc) that began fermentation in concrete egg, finishing malolactic fermentation in new French oak. Bottle age makes it feel sleek and polished, with some earthy, herbal flavors showing through in the velvety finish. Jonathan Eichholz of NYC’s The Modern found it perfectly balanced to please an entire party: “It’s a nonmalbec drinker’s malbec, but also a malbec drinker’s malbec.”
A few other notes such as the one above mentions a splash of bonarda in the blend, but who cares right?
fwiw
@kaolis And also fwiw the tasting note in this offer from Mr. Suckling is for vintage 2012, he does however mention aromas of spiced cherry, ripe black plum, dried mushroom, chocolate and hazelnut in this 2015…
The 2013 ‘Reserva’ was a really solid wine, we finished the last of that case in 2021 and it was still drinking great. Honestly even the last bottle was tight and needed some decant. It was a steal around $12/bottle for the case. This sounds pretty solid from the rat reviews.
Anyone in Denver want to split? I’m happy with 4 - 6 bottles.
@knlprez @WonderWhom @COBrent either of you want in on this one?
@knlprez I’ll take 2-3 even tho you didn’t ask me
@knlprez @WonderWhom Sitting this one out, having purchased yesterday - thanks for checking!
Interesting that the casemates picture of the bottle is completely different than the labrat picture of the bottle. I guess the casemates folks were sent the wrong marketing shot?
@jhkey also if I’m reading correctly the two rat bottles had different abv
@jhkey @kaolis I saw that too, mine was definitely 13.9%. It was printed dot-matrix style on the back of the bottle. Maybe the other rat had a different lot at a higher abv?
@jhkey CellarTracker identifies the Casemates label as coming from the 2014 release.
@jhkey @rpstrong Says 2015 on the bottle.
The Wine Enthusiast Vintage Chart has 2015 for Argentina/Mendoza ranked only at 85. Could someone comment on this? Should we be concerned?
@free2day33611 If you want to base your purchasing on the tastemakers, then yes, you should be concerned.
If you want to base your taste on what this site has done really well, labrats and previous vintages chiming in, then you should heed their advice. After all, they actually tasted this wine versus a blanket number from a person for an entire country?
That said, way too rich for my blood.
Fuckin’ finally! Another malbec! Time to put this in the…
Nope, nope nope nope.
@DrunkCat Wax capsules are a “nope” for me
@DanOR @DrunkCat I think unobtainium is heavy plastic not wax…
@DrunkCat
Ha, we need more posts like this! I got a great laugh from it!
@Drez143 @DrunkCat thunderthighs from the old site would’ve bounced it for, well you know why. LOL.
@Drez143 @DrunkCat @jmdavidson1
Not so sure, TT was pretty tolerant, and a hoot on the tour. Sure would not have gotten a QP tho…