Argentine Malbec Goes Mainstream

Malbec from Argentina is becoming a must-have on America’s wine lists. In Winemetrics‘ soon-to-be published 2010 Chain Restaurant Report, 52% of the over 100 chains surveyed carried at least one example of this affordable, crowd-pleasing red.  This figure would undoubtably be higher if certain chains did not exclusively source their wines from specific countries (e.g. Outback Steakhouse has only wines from Australia and the U.S.)  Currently Malbec trails White Zinfandel in 14th place in the varietal hierarchy, but has twice the distribution of 15th place Petite Sirah. A clearer picture of Malbec’s strength on-premise will emerge with the publication of our 2010 On-Premise Wine Distribution in early October.