Allison Wallace writes Allison Wallace is the co-author of AdVINEtures, an award-winning wine and travel blog now in its 12th year. Having visited more than 85 countries, she brings a global perspective shaped by firsthand discovery, complemented by formal training that includes WSET Level 2 and the Canadian Wine Scholar (CWS) designation. Her storytelling combines her passion for travel with a deep wine knowledge, highlighting the people, cultures, and regions behind every glass.
Pairing Malbec with memory
Every time I open a bottle of Argentine Malbec, I think of my mother. Not that it brings her back. But for a moment, it feels like sitting across from her again. And maybe that’s what makes it a perfect pairing.
She was born in Buenos Aires, back when the city still fully lived up to its reputation as the Paris of South America. That sense of culture and conversation, of curiosity about the world, never left her. She carried it with her through six countries, raising five kids along the way, adapting to whatever life required with a kind of effortless grace.
Malbec does that too, in its own way. It’s rooted in Argentina now, but it’s never lost its sense of where it came from. It knows how to hold both things at once.
The first thing you notice in a Malbec is the fruit. It presents boldly with plum and blackberry, and sometimes it’s almost too generous. There’s nothing shy about it.
My mother wasn’t shy either.
She was five feet tall on a good day, and people underestimated her constantly. I used to enjoy watching that play out. Someone would make a quick assumption, and within minutes realize they were outmatched, usually in a debate she had no intention of backing down from. She didn’t raise her voice, but she didn’t retreat either.
That kind of confidence isn’t loud, it’s measured. And that’s what good Malbec gets right. It has weight, but it isn’t clumsy. There’s structure in the tannins that hold everything together, even when the wine feels generous. It knows exactly where its edges are.
So did she.
We shared a lot—books, food, long conversations about everything and nothing. And sometimes, a glass of wine stretched those moments just a little longer. I don’t remember specific bottles as much as I remember the feeling: unhurried and easy, like time had softened around us.
What I think about more now, though, isn’t the boldness. It’s what came with time.
Wine transforms in the glass. Give it a few minutes and it starts to open up. Its edges soften as other notes come through that you didn’t notice at first. The wines that stay with you aren’t the ones that peak immediately, they’re the ones that evolve.
My mother did that her entire life.
She experienced things that should have broken her. The loss of a child. A divorce that forced her to start over when she wasn’t expecting it. And instead of shrinking, she rebuilt. Went back to school in her fifties. Found work that mattered to her and showed up for it every single day without fail.
She didn’t talk about resilience. She just lived it. If anything, she aged the way great wine does. Not by becoming something different, but by becoming more fully herself.
There’s a point, somewhere in the middle of a glass of Malbec, where everything settles into place. The fruit, the structure, and the acidity all come into balance. Nothing sticks out and nothing is missing.
That’s where I find her now.
Not in some dramatic, overwhelming way. Just…there. In the same way the wine holds both strength and softness at once, and in the way it lingers.
I don’t drink Argentine Malbec to remember her. I don’t need help with that.
