Argentina’s Wines Enter the World Stage

BY STEPHEN TANZER | JULY 25, 2018 

Against a backdrop of some recent tricky growing seasons and the constant economic challenge of doing business in Argentina, the country’s best producers are making more refined, aromatically complex and vibrant wines than ever before – bottles that should satisfy even hard-core fans of classic European wines.

My intensive tour of Mendoza during two warm, sun-drenched weeks in April allowed me to spend time with a number of the talented winemakers and viticulturists who have spurred the rapid improvement in Argentina’s wines in recent years. It also gave me another chance to investigate the spectacular terroirs of Uco Valley, which are producing a growing percentage of the country’s classiest wines. The city of Mendoza has witnessed tremendous growth in the new century, sprawling to incorporate nearby villages that were once outside the city proper. Getting out of downtown traffic and into nearby wine districts takes a lot longer than it used to. This is a bustling wine capital today, with new resort-style hotels catering to international tourists bearing stronger currencies. Where food in Mendoza was previously less adventurous and mainly suited for carnivores, far more diverse and ambitious restaurants have sprung up, with the relatively high prices charged by some of them making it clear that they cater mostly to tourists and wine industry visitors. 

The timing for my tour in April, at the tail end of the 2018 harvest, was not exactly propitious.  Despite the incontrovertible evidence of climate change and a number of freakishly early harvests in Europe since the beginning of the new century, Mother Nature has thrown some nasty curveballs at Argentina’s wine lands in recent years, particularly Mendoza. Argentina has suffered through a string of unusually wet years (2014 through 2017) and a couple of very short crops (’16 and ’17). 

In the end, though, I should not have worried. My coverage this year, based on a combination of individual winery visits and group tastings, includes more 90+-point bottles than I have ever found in any past year – an accomplishment that’s only magnified by the fact that the quality of recent vintages has been decidedly uneven. Not only have the most conscientious growers and winemakers learned to deal with challenging weather, but some of the wines they have bottled from these vintages are simply more pleasing to those with European palates than wines from hot, dry years. And I tasted more new releases than ever before from the Uco Valley, which has become Argentina’s most exciting source of vibrant, lower-octane wines, with the best yet to come.

Early signs of autumn at the Zuccardi winery in Paraje Altamira

Uco Valley Is the Future, and Not Just for Malbec

Since the turn of the present century, the center of gravity in Mendoza has shifted southward from the so-called First Growing Region (Primera Zona Vitivinícola), the traditional heart of Argentina’s wine industry where quality wines were first produced on a large scale. This area includes the river bed of the High Mendoza River in Luján de Cuyo (i.e., the Las Compuertas, Vistalba, Agrelo and Perdriel districts) and western Maipú (Cruz de Piedra, Barrancas, Lunlunta and Russell), just southeast of the city of Mendoza and generally featuring flatter, lower-altitude vineyards than those of Luján de Cuyo a bit farther to the south and west. Wines from Luján de Cuyo in particular are best known for their structure and concentration, thanks in part to significant reserves of old vines. This area has long relied on an ingenious and extensive system of irrigation channels, some of them dating back to the 16th century, drawing on water from the Mendoza River, which in turn comes from the melting snow of the Andes.