Before Merlot there was Malbec. Under the name "Noir de Pressac" on the right bank and "Côt" upriver, it was among the most planted black grapes of pre-phylloxera Bordeaux — the dark, fleshy heart of the nineteenth-century blend, prized for the "black wine" depth it lent.
Its Bordeaux story ends almost brutally: phylloxera, then the frost of February 1956, killed the old vines, and growers replanted the easier, earlier Merlot — its half-sibling by Magdeleine Noire. A few hundred hectares survive, mostly in Blaye and Bourg, while the grape itself reigns in exile four thousand hectares high in Argentina's Mendoza.