Clos Siguier Cahors Malbec

The wine equivalent of a perfectly tailored blazer - polished, approachable, but with enough character to remember. Not all Malbec is a fruit bomb from Argentina! This French beauty from Cahors is Malbec's sophisticated older sibling who studied abroad and came back with depth. Think plum and blackberry that went to finishing school, with elegant notes of black tea and stone. Gilles Bley farms the high terraces above the Lot River, where the vines get better views and apparently better manners. The result? Malbec that's bright, silky, and knows how to work a room.

Our world no longer makes a vigneron like Gilles Bley of Clos Siguier. He releases his wines, not necessarily in a sequence of vintages. He hardly travels out of France to promote his wines. Time stands still at Clos Siguier. Cahors, an appellation in a sparse and remote region broadly known as Southwest, is a test of will to get there. Cahors is divided into two camps: vines that are grown on flat fertile lands and the vines that are cultivated on high plateaus.

Cahors made from the flat fertile land is heavy, alcoholic and is of no interest. Cahors from the vines grown with care on a high limestone plateau and vinified in time-tested traditions, on the other hand, is beautiful. Clos Siguier is on the highest limestone plateau, just outskirts of a stunning hilltop village of Montcuq. Clos Siguier was found in 1779 and it has been owned by the Bley family ever since. The wines are fresh, elegant and perfumed.