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Argentina’s wine industry has witnessed a swathe of changes in recent years as its producing regions have expanded and new techniques have been introduced. Some things, though, remain very much the same.
In many ways, the Argentinian wine scene, especially at the premium-plus end, has been transformed over the past two decades, thanks to the exploration of new regions and viticultural and winemaking techniques. Yet some things appear unalterable – especially the pre-eminence of the country’s flagship grape variety, Malbec.
“Undoubtedly, when somebody talks about Argentina, they talk about football, Messi, dulce de leche and Malbec – they are part of our identity and passion,” says Bodega Navarro Correas’ EMEA trade marketing manager, Josefina Castro Feijóo. “Malbec for us is not only a grape variety, it is our ancestor. It allowed us to study new places, develop cutting-edge techniques, look out into the world while adapting to our conditions and, most importantly, create different and attractive products.”
Malbec has opened the doors to multiple overseas markets for an industry historically over-reliant on eyewateringly high levels of domestic consumption. When beer began to erode those consumption levels during the 1970s, and domestic wine engaged in a race to the bottom in pricing terms, Malbec was almost forgotten – before being revived at the end of the 1980s, since when the varietal has hardly looked back.
Today, Argentina’s success in the UK, the US, Canada and the Nordic nations has been built on the foundations laid by the country’s emblematic grape variety. Consumption in Brazil, along with other Latin American markets, is on the up, and buyers are increasingly discovering Argentina beyond Malbec, in terms of grape variety, region and wine style.
Success beyond Malbec
The success in Sweden of organics-driven producer Domaine Bousquet illustrates this growing diversity. When co-founder & CEO Anne Bousquet first met the country’s off-premise monopoly, Systembolaget, in 2005, less than 1% of the wines sold there were organic; by 2008, the company was selling more than 1m bottles in Sweden, making up almost two-thirds of the country’s total organic wine sales. Today, 26% of all wine sold in Sweden is organic – the highest percentage in the world – and Bousquet continues to perform strongly there.
In terms of challenger varietals, Cabernet Sauvignon probably has the greatest claim, with Argentina’s continental conditions producing a different take on a grape that is often grown in a maritime climate. For Anne Bousquet, it is “the next big thing in Argentina”, and can be as good as Malbec. “Argentine Cabernets tend to have greater concentration of red and black fruit, and very little green tones due to the altitude of the vineyards,” she adds.
At Trivento, chief winemaker Germán Di Cesare agrees. “As more consumers discover Malbec, there is an opportunity in the future for them to discover our high-altitude and continental-climate Cabernet Sauvignon wines, which present different characteristics from ocean-influenced Cabernets,” he says. Di Cesare also points to the revival of Semillon, a historical Mendoza variety that, until recently, was all but forgotten.
Bousquet is also optimistic about the future for Cabernet Franc – a widely tipped varietal, but currently in short supply – Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, while Castro Feijóo highlights Pinot Noir, Merlot, Grenache and Albariño.
The list of contenders, it seems, is almost endless.
“Malbec was our letter of introduction and, thanks to it, consumers around the globe recognise us as a country that produces wines of excellent quality,” says Graffigna head winemaker Fernando Mengoni. “While this reputation has already been built, maintaining it requires serious work, not only to preserve it, but also to improve on it.”
Diversification is transforming approach to Malbec
As Argentina’s wine producers have diversified, they have also transformed their approach to Malbec itself – eschewing the ‘big is beautiful’ philosophy of extreme ripeness, extraction and oak in favour of something more expressive of vineyard location and terroir. Concha y Toro’s Trivento business, for instance, makes everything from White Malbec [in its Trivento Reserve tier] to icon wine Eolo, sourced from 100-year-old vines in Luján de Cuyo in Mendoza.
This process has been aided hugely by the exploration of cooler, higher-altitude vineyard locations, most notably in Mendoza’s Uco Valley. Here, the focus has lasered in on increasingly niche locations and names such as Gualtallary, Altamira and Los Arboles. In Gualtallary alone, altitudes range from 1,000m to almost 2,000m – climatically speaking, the equivalent of travelling from Tuscany to Alsace.
“We believe that having a banner variety has a lot of positive implications, since it positions Argentina on the world wine map,” says Rogelio Rabino, head winemaker at Sogrape-owned Finca Flichman. “But currently, with more studies of the terroir, we found that there’s no homogeneous style of Malbec, rather there’s a great diversity of profiles, from the traditional ones from old vineyards, with super-fruity, sweet tannins, to the modern, fresh, herbal and spicy ones.”
This approach is not simply based on producer preference, but consumer demand, points out Anne Bousquet. “During the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a lot of structure, extraction – with heavy use of oak – high alcohol and hot wines,” she says. “Now, winemakers favour elegance and fresher styles with clear fruit expression; consumers are also looking for this style.”
Covid ‘killed a lot of sacred cows’
This a sea change that’s still in progress: during the Covid-affected 2020 harvest, Moët Hennessy-owned Terrazas de los Andes rushed to complete picking before lockdowns made working conditions impracticable. “We knew we had to harvest fast,” recalls Terrazas founder Hervé Birnie-Scott. “We felt that the grapes were ready, but the alcohol was lower.
“In one year, we progressed five years. What we wouldn’t have dared to do, we did. We were already with this trend to harvest earlier for the freshness and acidity. But we accelerated that trend and jumped in time. We took some risks. It’s a revolution. 2020 killed a lot of sacred cows and sped up our learning curve.”
That 2020 harvest at Terrazas represents a microcosm of the recent changes sweeping through Argentina’s premium wine industry: despite a growing diversity in terms of grape variety and region, Malbec and Mendoza remain the dominant forces – but today, they represent something very different compared to the wines produced in the region at the turn of the Millennium.
Argentina’s winemakers and the ‘big frost’
At the end of October last year, a powerful cold front swept over South America, affecting not only the vineyards of Argentina, but also equatorial areas, with temperatures reaching historic seasonal lows.
As ever with spring frosts in vineyard areas, the timing was crucial – budbreak had already taken place, leaving plants vulnerable as temperatures dipped below zero. Some areas saw the mercury plummet to -5°C.
“The negative impact varies depending on the area,” says Navarro Correas’ Castro Feijóo. “Some vineyards in the east of Mendoza lost 100% of their production. In the Uco Valley, the damage was concentrated in Tunuyán and Tupungato, and the lowlands of Luján de Cuyo.
“In the north of the country, in the Calchaquí Valley, the damage reached 80% in some vineyards,” she says. “On this basis, the decrease in production can be estimated at approximately 30%. Consequently, the 2023 harvest will be quite affected in terms of quantity, and wine prices will increase.”
In the Mendoza region, roughly 40% of vineyards were affected by frost, reckons Anne Bousquet. But it was the Uco Valley, the south and the east that were most impacted – particularly Altamira, El Cepillo, Las Pintadas, Vista Flores and Zampal – others, including Gualtallary, saw only minor damage.
Producers with an array of vineyards in different locations – Trivento, for example, has 12 across Mendoza, of which only two were frost-affected – were rewarded for effectively spreading their risk. At the time of writing, however, the detailed consequences were still unclear.
“It’s still too early to know the real damage, since we must observe and measure the recovery of the plant, the possibility of secondary bud sprouting, if it comes with bunches, bunch weight, etc,” says Flichman’s Rabino. “In other words, the decrease in production will only be able to be quantified at harvest time.”
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