Reading about Malvar, of course we wanted to try it. It sounded nice and obscure. The nearest we could come to it was a bottle of wine from the Madrid area with 70% Malvar together with Torrontes (25%) and Muscat a petits grains (5%).
Our bottle (by a company called Licinia Wine Madrid S.L.) was named MUSS and weighed in at 13.5%. Hopes of something distinctive were not fulfilled.
Looking Malvar up in 'Wine Grapes' you are referred to Lairen. Under that name you discover that Lairen is not L'Airen or Airen (the most widely planted variety in all of Spain) but a separate variety with a much lower acreage which is hard to quantify because of frequent confusion with L'Airen. It is a totally different variety. Its origin and main home is in Southern Spain but it is grown in the Madrid area under the name Malvar.
So what we were drinking here was Lairen. On this showing, it doesn't seem to have much personality, pleasant enough though it is. Not a 'MUSS.'
