Previously, I knew just three things about the Argentina: It had produced an incredibly important footballer (Maradona); it had become bankrupt; and it had turned out some pretty nice wine (mostly Malbec). Since then, I have witness a worthy successor to Maradona( Lionel Messi ) and tasted some really good reds (almost all made from Malbec) and interesting whites( Torrontes ).
I've tasted Argentinean wines over the years, and though some were quite good, they were often hard to find. But suddenly Argentinean wines are all over the place, and every winemaker I talk with has either just been to Mendoza or is planting a vineyard there. And exports are posting big numbers too: 40 percent more Argentinean wine was shipped internationally in 2006 than in 2005, when 6.4 million cases were exported. And this was over a million more than the year before.
Mendoza.
Mendoza is an arid province at the foot of the Andes, some 600 miles west of Buenos Aires. It is where Argentina's wine industry began about 500 years ago, and it's still the most important region in terms of volume (accounting for 75 percent of the country's total production) and quality. The first vineyardists came from Spain, followed a few hundred years later by their counterparts from Italy and France. The latter two brought cuttings of their native grapes: the Italians brought Bonarda, while the French contributed Malbec, from Bordeaux. And though the Italians won the award for most prolific (Bonarda is Argentina's most widely-planted grape), the French took home top prize for quality: Argentinean Malbecs are deep-colored wines of great intensity and flavor with sweet tannins and spicy bouquets.
The city of Mendoza is on an active fault line; indeed, major earthquakes have destroyed it several times. That might explain why most Mendoza buildings aren't more than a few stories high. The Mendoza landscape is unlike any wine country: desert scrub and adobe encampments giving way here and there to well-tended vines, many covered with netting to protect against hail.
While attending an Argentinean wine tasting. I didn't see many familiar names. Was it because most Argentinean wines are never exported? Until a few years ago, Argentines consumed almost all of their own wines, a distinction not even the intensely patriotic French can claim. This was probably just as well for the rest of the world; for a long time Argentinean wines weren't very good. They were tired and oxidative, often aged too long in wood. But they were cheap. And most of them still are: 70 percent of the wine consumed in Argentina costs 2.50 pesos or less per liter—that's under a dollar U.S.
And even the best Argentinean wines are relative bargains. The 10 Super-Mendozans (Thanks to the Italians who created Super-Tuscan wines, every expensive, nontraditional wine is now accorded the term Super.) I tasted (all Malbecs or Malbec blends) cost RM90 to RM160 a bottle, notably less than the top wines of any other country. The wines themselves were a mix of styles—some more fruit-forward and international, others more old-fashioned and rustic. Two of my favorites were the modern, barrique-aged Achával-Ferrer Finca Altamira Malbec and the more rustic Terrazas de Los Andes Gran Malbec.
Terrazas
Terrazas de Los Andes, a winery whose name is derived in part from the notion that there are perfect heights to grow particular grapes in the Andes. For example, Malbec is cultivated on "terraces" 3,500 feet above sea level while Chardonnay is grown even higher, at almost 4,000 feet. High-altitude vineyards are one of Mendoza's big selling points, and wines made with grapes from such sites are said to have many of the same qualities as those made from grapes grown on hillsides—greater complexity and depth of flavor.
Terrazas is part of Bodegas Chandon, a company owned by Moët & Chandon. Bodegas Chandon was Moët & Chandon's first foray outside France, and its fruity sparkling wines have long been some of Argentina's best sellers. Bodegas Chandon is less than a 10-minute drive from Terrazas and is one of Mendoza's most touristy wineries. In addition to a visitor's center, it has a Napa-style tasting room (with a un-Napa-like cigarette machine) and a gift shop—a rare Mendoza amenity and even a restaurant.
When Chandon acquired Terrazas, the property was being used as a brandy distillery; it had become unprofitable during one of the country's many economic crises. Indeed, the specter of economic disaster is never far from the minds of Argentines. Most recently they've had to deal with the devaluation of the peso a few years ago (which Argentines call simply "The Crisis"), when the peso was no longer pegged to the dollar. And while this resulted in the near collapse of the banking system as well as high unemployment (not to mention the decimation of the middle class) it created opportunity for investment in wine. Vineyard land dropped precipitously in value, and panicked landholders began selling off parcels at fire-sale prices. The winegrowers who remained reoriented themselves away from the domestic market, refined their product and entered the international fray. As a result, Argentina's wine business is doing better than the country as a whole.
The Terrazas label is fairly new; although the winery building itself is over 100 years old, the first vintage of Terrazas debuted less than ten years ago. Terrazas makes a range of wines and varietals, but its old-vine Gran Malbec is unquestionably the star.
The French are much in Argentina
The roll call of French names are certainly impressive: the Lurtons from Bordeaux, the Rothschilds and of course, Michel Rolland, the globe-trotting wine consultant from Bordeaux. Rolland has been a regular presence in Argentina for more than 20 years. In fact, so frequent are his visits that Rolland even said of himself, "Michel Rolland is much in Argentina." (A sure sign of success: referring to yourself in the third person.)
Rolland has consulted for many Argentinean wineries over the years (his first was Bodegas Etchart, now part of the French giant Pernod Ricard), but he only recently began to invest his own money in projects, including Clos de los Siete, or Vineyard of the Seven. This elite all-French consortium includes Rolland and his wife Dany as well as Catherine Péré-Vergé (Pomerol-based Château Montviel), the D'Aulans (former owners of Piper Heidsieck) and Laurent Dassault (Château Dassault). Each will make wine in a separate facility. Rolland's label, Val de Flores, just appeared on the market in the U.S.
The owners of Lafite teamed up with Argentine Nicolás Catena at Bodegas Caro to produce an elegant if somewhat anonymous-seeming Malbec-Cabernet blend. But even if the wine itself is not yet memorable, the winery's location certainly is, next door to the only famous restaurant in Mendoza: Francis Mallmann's 1884. Patagonian-born Mallmann is a culinary deity in Argentina, and his restaurant draws diners from all over the world.
Roberto de la Mota and French partner, Pierre Lurton, of the legendary Château Cheval Blanc in Bordeaux. Their wine, Cheval des Andes, has only just been released, but it may be the best modern wine in Argentina to date. A blend of Malbec and Cabernet, it's a gorgeous synthesis of Bordeaux finesse with Argentinean power and fruit.
Barbarians at the winery gate
Of course, the French aren't the only ones who have contributed money and expertise to Mendoza. Plenty of Italians have done so too. As have several natives, or in the case of Santiago Achával, of Achával-Ferrer, near-natives. Achával, was born in the U.S. but grew up in Argentina. He returned to the States for his MBA, but when he got "the wine bug," he went back to Argentina. He bought much of his vineyard land around the time of The Crisis. "Everyone was panicking," Achával recalled. "They were afraid the dollar would suddenly be worth 100 pesos. We bought all the land we could. We bought a Malbec vineyard that had been planted in 1910 for $6,000 an acre."
It certainly seemed like a wise investment; the Malbecs I tasted (single-vineyard wines,) were extraordinarily rich and intense. The 2003 Finca Bella Vista was a particular standout. Achával's wines have already won praise: Wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr., gave his 1999 Merlot-Malbec a score of 91 and called it "complex, nuanced and extremely refined." Such success doesn't appear to have affected the modest Achával or, for that matter, his winery—an unglamorous building hidden behind a graphitized wall inside the town of Luján de Cuyo.
Mayan Temple to Malbec
Bodega Catena Zapata, probably Argentina's best-known winery today. Although it too is an architectural oddity (a pyramid mimicking the look of a Mayan temple), it seems somehow at home in the landscape.
This isn't so surprising, as its owner, the visionary Nicolás Catena, has spent decades integrating unlikely combinations of old and new. Though born to an Argentinean family with a long winemaking history, Catena has always looked to the outside world for inspiration. He studied in the States (acquiring a Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University) and has worked with famous outsiders like Frenchman Jacques Lurton and the highly regarded American winemaker Paul Hobbs—who has since gone on to an acclaimed Argentinean venture of his own. Catena is currently hoping to bring some Australian winemakers to Argentina, to hear what they think of his wine. "We've had the Americans, now we need the Australians," he said.
Catena's daughter, Laura, is a doctor in the United States; she also makes very good wine under her own label, Luca
As Nicolás Catena once stated to some journalist who asked his opinion, when asked what he thought about all the foreigners in Mendoza, Catena, true to form replied: "They are coming with the intention of producing high-quality wines. If they're successful, they will help the image of the region." He paused, and added with a laugh, "And of course, I will receive the benefit of that prestige."
Imagine if you will the view from atop Catena's pyramid: the well-tended, symmetrical vines that run down the road into the wilder greens and browns of the valley below, and up into the very mountains, it seems how Mendoza must have looked to those winemakers from so long ago: a land of great difficulty with earthquakes and hail! but at the same time a place of great promise—its true potential perhaps only now fully realized.
