Southern Wine Group

Argentina and Its Wine Regions:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Argentina is a wonderful place to grow grapes and make fine wine. There are few other places that have such a rich heritage and tradition using the finest ingredients from the various altitudes and climates encountered in Argentina. Because Argentina is such a diverse place, there are several notable factors that make its environment extraordinarily unique. Playing to local tastes has kept her from expressing her full potential, but with the right material (and good management), she may knock your socks off when she finally gets a chance on the big stage.

Argentina has produced great quantities of wine for a long time, and wine consumption here has traditionally been one of the highest in the world. Attitudes and tastes are changing, though, and domestic consumption has fallen to 41 liters per person per year (from a historic high of over 90 liters), and continues to fall. With massive production facilities already in place, Argentina already has much of the necessary infrastructure to make an international impact. The main challenge lies in adapting wine styles to more sophisticated tastes while keeping bottle prices very reasonable. At the same time, winemakers hope to create memorable wines with a modern, recognizably Argentinian stamp. If successful, these efforts promise terrific wines as well as the novelty interest to attract a profitable export trade.

Perhaps because Chile, its neighbor to the west, has moved so explosively into the modern wine scene (and been so visible in restaurants) in the last twenty years, Argentina is usually compared to its western neighbor, but the comparison can be misleading. Argentina has its own fascinating cultural identity, a distinct history, and a pair of promising varietals, the red Malbec and white Torrontés, that make it unique among wine producers. Considering its grape-growing and winemaking resources, its potential is enormous.

Spanish settlers brought hardy "work horse" vines to Argentina over the Andes from Peru and Chile as early as the mid-1500's, and the Argentines who made the spectacular Pampas beef a staple of daily life have produced and enthusiastically consumed full-bodied red wines to accompany it ever since. Historically, wines made from Criolla (related to the Chilean Pais) were plentiful but not high quality, and were often specifically vinified to withstand harrowing shipping conditions to other South American nations such as Peru and South Brazil.

In 1853 Argentina's School of Agriculture was founded in Mendoza province, headed by Miguel Pouget. The first director encouraged the European model of winemaking, introduced French varietals, and taught grafting and other modern cultivation techniques. In 1884 the province undertook massive irrigation projects, and the dams and channels constructed at that time transformed arid lands into oases, allowing modern viticulture.

The multicultural identity of Argentina is as complex as that of the United States and has similar historical precedents. Two waves of immigration -- after the country achieved independence from Spain in 1816, and again in a huge wave around the turn of the century -- brought settlers from Italy, Spain and France, as well as virtually every other European nation. These pioneers brought vines to supply their taste for European wine varieties. Among these were the predominantly French Malbec, Spanish Torrontés and Tempranillo, and the Italian varietals Sangiovese, Nebbiolo, Dolcetto, Barbera and Lambrusco.

Nineteenth century winemakers concentrated on optimizing the quantity rather than quality of their wines, a trend that by and large has only begun to change over the last fifteen years. Historically, they planted vines on the dry eastern slopes of the Andes foothills, improved their irrigation systems and produced everyday wine in abundance.

Between 1930 and 1983, years of political and economic instability seriously disrupted the industry. One of the more shattering changes for winemakers was a tax policy that encouraged destruction of fine older vineyards and favored planting of inferior high-volume varietals. In Mendoza province, whose proud history of red Malbec and white Semillon wines had made it known as the Tierra del Sol y del Buen Vino (country of sun and good wine), wine production was drastically disrupted by the terrible political conditions of the 1970's, from which it (like the rest of Argentina) continues to recover.

Today its vineyards cover 490,000 acres (210,000 hectares), down from a previous high of 700,000 acres (300,000 hectares). Though still only fifteenth as an exporter, Argentina is the world's fourth largest producer and by far the largest producer in South America. It makes approximately the same amount of wine as the United States, about 1.7 billion liters (449 million gallons), or roughly five times the output of Chile.

Though its recovery will be a labor of many years to come, Argentina has a fine potential and hopes for a larger place in the world market, as only 13% (350 million liters, or 92.5 million gallons) of its production is currently sold abroad. In the last ten years, increasing foreign and domestic investment have begun to reconstitute the industry in a modern mold, and world commerce has doubled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For example, the vineyards can look very similar to vineyards anywhere, but because the environment ranges in altitude you can get some vineyards that look like this high altitude vineyard below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to arid places that look like this:

 

 

 

 

Mendoza, the epicentre of the Argentinean wine industry, lies just a hundred miles or so east of Santiago, the capital city of Chile. However, the journey between the two is as much vertical as horizontal, separated as they are by the highest peak of the Andes, mount Aconcagua at over 23,000 feet.

As with Chile, the Andes is the backbone that supports the Argentinean wine industry. Surprisingly, Argentina is one of the world's top five largest wine producing nations. Perhaps because of their Hispanic history and tradition, Argentineans have also been very significant consumers of wine. But young Argentineans are turning away from wine in their droves towards Coca-Cola, designer beer or other more fashionable drinks. Annual consumption has dropped from a peak of around 90 litres per capita, to half that level. This is in common with much of Europe where similar problems beset the wine industry, but the fact that almost all of Argentina's production was for the local market has had a devastating effect. At the same time, Argentina has been taking its first tentative steps from decades of oppressive military rule and dictatorship.

 

 

Some of the Mendoza vineyards look like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The soil of Argentina ranges in type depending on the area. Below is a sample of the soil found in the Mendoza wine region.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malbec grapes look like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some vineyards being harvested with a map of Argentina's most distinct wine regions:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wine regions can be seen in the following areas of Argentina:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A political map of Argentina: