Eagle's Rock Piedra del Aguila Malbec `08 $8.99 (not TJ's) *

I searched far and wide to find a saving grace for this wine.  So far, in the great Malbec Experiment, this is a total fail.  It smelled nice, was light, yet tasted of deep fruits (blackberry/tart raspberry) but it was dry, oh so very dry... puckeringly dry, and astringent and it made my throat burn. I think that I may try mulling it tomorrow to see if it can be saved.  FYI: Mulling is my last resort in the winter, Sangria in the summer.

After the vinturi: it goes smooth, velvety and then every imperfection that I tasted before was magnified.  Shudder.  DO NOT Aerate this wine.

This is a 100% Argentinian Malbec, estate bottled, from Mendoza with a pretty good pedigree. I just don't know enough about Malbec to understand where it went wrong.  Maybe this is their factory seconds wine, as I can't find it on their website but the provenance is clearly on the label (website and all). As for pairing, I surfed over to Dave the Wine Merchant and got his Slow Cooked Lamb Stew  recipe, the stew was great. I had some white rice and steamed green beans as an accompaniment, but I had to force myself to drink the first glass and the subsequent sip from the vinturied glass. I like Argentinian Malbec; I want to drink more of it and understand the varietal better. I just hope that the next bottle is better than this one.
  
Now for what makes me really sad about this wine.  I bought it when I went home to Maine.  We had made a quick stop at the Swan Lake Grocery Store, which was the penny candy, soda and ice cream supplying small town store of my childhood.  After a Summer's day of weeding the garden and then riding my bike to the lake to swim with friends, we could get snacks at the dam.  Then Robbie (he's a local success story) bought the store and morphed it into the supermarket that it is today.  Also, it is a literary low ball in my life, possibly my first noticing of a deliberate pun.  The store's logo is still "Best by a Dam Site" (due to its proximity to Swan Lake Dam). Robby's Store now caters to the locals and those with Summer camps around the lake.  He has an impressive selection of wine for the area.  I just wish that I had picked up a good bottle. It would have been a great bookend to my childhood memories of swimming in the lake with friends and then getting a cold Coke and ice cream, now to my adult memories of a good meal and a bottle of wine.  The next time I am home, I'll try again.

I am absolutely gobsmacked that Google Street Views has Swanville Maine, but here it is, in all of it's 

expanded glory: 

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