Argentina Pushes the Limits
The five-man JamesSuckling.com team recently tasted the powerful yet very polished 2015 Cheval des Andes — a red blend dominated by the malbec grape with some cabernet sauvignon — at the estate in Mendoza and rated it 98 points. The night was falling in Argentina’s main wine-producing region, and the dark violet-blue silhouette of the Andes was still visible through the glass walls of the visitor’s center. Overseeing the Cheval des Andes project for the owners of LVMH, Pierre Lurton is head of the famous Chateau Cheval Blanc of St.-Emilion in Bordeaux, and it was him who poured us the 2007 Cheval des Andes from magnum. We all smelled the wine first and then sipped, but pushed back our glasses. Although the wine was still alive after the great 2015 and there is a row of extremely promising cask samples from the 2017 harvest, the 2007 tasted chewy, heavy and a bit clumsy. The contrast says everything about how far Pierre Lurton and his team have come in making balanced reds, as well as the progress that the Argentine wine industry has achieved in the last five or six years.
James and Jack Suckling and Stuart Pigott trying a selection of Argentine wines at the tasting room in Mendoza.
In spite of that, even today, wine professionals would often talk about “South American wines” and forget to mention the unique personality of Argentine wines! Not only are the country’s winemakers producing world-class reds from the unique grape malbec, as well as others from cabernet sauvignon to pinot noir, they are in the midst of a creating a white wine revolution. Argentine winemakers are now making minerally and powerful chardonnays that can compete with the best of the world — even the holy grail for Burgundy’s grand crus.
Argentina and Chile lie on the eastern and western sides of the Andes Mountains that form the “spine” of South America. If you take a quick glance at the map, you might think that Argentina and Chile must be wine-producing nations with very similar characteristics. This is because the centers of their vineyard plantings both lie around 33° South. On top of that, the wine cellar shelves at supermarkets and wine stores tend to place the powerful Andean reds side by side. However, the differences between the two wine regions are significant. To fully understand the two wine countries’ properties, you will need to physically be in the vineyards, taste the wines intensively and talk with the winemakers. And that’s what we did this year and do every year. We visited dozens of winemakers as well as tasted more than 1,300 wines in February.
Although the Andes tower over the vineyards of both nations, the situations are radically different. Argentina has far more high-altitude vineyards than its neighbor Chile. The name of the top white wine, Adrianna Vineyard White Stones Chardonnay 2014 from Catena Zapata — an intensely mineral wine with electric acidity and a score of 99 points — reflects this notion. Laura Catena’s Adrianna Vineyard is planted on stony limestone soils at an altitude of almost 1,500 meters; in other words, higher than any vineyard in Europe! Aside from this particular wine, we also rated a string of exciting chardonnays in similar racy, mineral styles, from Terrazas de los Andes, Trapiche and Catena Zapata, 98 points.
El Enemigo has really excelled at making wines in Mendoza’s diverse terroirs. This is an amazing chardonnay with bright minerality.
The two sides of the Andes actually look very dissimilar. The main two wine-growing provinces of Argentina, Mendoza and San Juan are brown in color due to the aridity. They occupy a strip of the irrigated cool desert below the mountains that runs 3,600 kilometers from Salta in the north to Patagonia in the south. The moderating influence of the Pacific Ocean is much too far away to make an impact, and as a result, there is a large day-night temperature variation. Coupled with the effects of abundant sunshine, Argentine wines tend to be bold and forthright.
The Argentine wine industry is much larger, too. The main region Mendoza alone is about 150,000 hectares in size, which is bigger than the entire Chilean wine industry! In result, the wine consumption plays a much bigger role in Argentine culture than it does in Chile. And it’s interesting to note that the 39,488 hectares of malbec planted in Argentina only comprise 17.5 percent of the country’s total vineyard area. More astonishingly is that this accounts for significantly more than half of all the world’s malbec. This unique situation of this major grape variety in Argentina is one of the two factors that makes malbec as the wine country’s strongest card. The large area of mature and old malbec vines only underlines this fact.
Secondly, the diversity of wine styles made from malbec sets Argentina apart from its neighboring wine country Chile. “Our vision is based on the fact that malbec is one of the few grape varieties that are never green,” explains Pierre Lurton. That’s a dramatic contrast to the cabernet sauvignon grape, as the wines may display dominant aromas of green bell peppers if the grapes were picked too early. The special DNA of malbec makes it possible for the wines to take on different styles, from fruit-driven reds with a Beaujolais-like design (achieved by early-picking) to massively rich, high-alcohol wines (achieved by late-picking). And we can see that Argentine producers are moving towards increasing the drinkability and finesse in their malbecs.
In between intense tasting sessions, the JamesSuckling.com team also enjoyed Argentine empanadas. Thank you for the warm hospitality, Argentina!
“We are doing more and more whole-berry fermentation, and I believe we have more drinkability and more finesse,” says Marcello Pelleriti, one of Argentina’s most gifted winemakers. “We don’t want to change our quality, but we want to improve it.”
Perhaps, this is why we frequently find violet and lavender aromas in good Argentine malbec, and the aromas are also what makes them distinctive amongst powerful reds. However, the greatest of these wines can also have notes of licorice, mushrooms, spices, leather and stones, making them very complex. As long as the grapes are picked before they become overripe, malbec also shows an appealing freshness, which often prevents the wines with over 14 percent of alcohol from tasting heavy. We don’t like heavy malbecs.
“You really have to be on your toes now with these extreme weather conditions,” says Hans Vinding-Diers of Bodega Noemia, who clearly has dialed back the massive fruit in his wines for an altogether better balance and complexity. “If you have to harvest a month earlier, then you have to. You can’t keep to old rules.”
Even to this today, overripeness and too much oak are still sometimes problems in Argentina reds, which can taste tired and be tiring to drink. We found a clear division of producers with wines like that and those with malbecs that have bright, pure aromas, fresh acidity and fine tannins. We’re convinced that the latter style is where a lot of the action will take place in the next couple of years, as the stunning wines from producers, such as Zuccardi, Catena, Trapiche, and Cobos, gain traction in export markets by changing the image of Argentine wine.
Bodega Chacra’s Sin Azufre 2017 is a superb Argentine pinot noir made with no sulfur. We highly recommend this unique red.
“In the end, the vintage and the place must show through in the wines. And they must be of the best quality,” says Laura Catena, the dynamic head of the famous wine firm carrying her family’s name. The nation is already producing some truly unique wines that lie far outside the big red cliché. The 2016 Treinta y Dos pinot noir from Bodega Chacra in Patagonia is sleek, expressive and energetic, scoring a total of 98 points on our scale.
Produced by El Enemigo — a part of the Catena group — the Gran Enemigo 2013 is a blend of cabernet franc with a touch of malbec, which is enormously concentrated, yet incredibly fresh and bright. Hence, it was rated as one of the top five wines on our tasting report with a score of 99 points. It is a shame that not many would expect those kinds of flavor profiles from Argentine wines. To us, the wines are conclusive proof that Argentina’s leading winemakers are pushing the limits and realizing the nation’s enormous potential. And many of them are farming organically and biodynamically, which we applaud.
During our massive tastings this year, we found more balanced and fruity wines in Mendoza, which can partly due to the partially wet weather in 2015 and 2016 during the harvest. However, we also think that it might be because many winemakers are over with the big jammy and overly wooded wines of yesterday. They realized that wines like that don’t reflect or communicate the true nature of their unique soils and microclimates, which is a great thing in our minds.
“People in Argentina understood three things: not to harvest late, don’t extract too much during the winemaking process and use less wood in aging. And now, you see the terroir,” says Herve Birnie-Scott, the head of Terrazas de los Andes.
The dinner at Cheval des Andes certainly underlined this message as we all found ourselves searching for what remained of the winery’s newest release — the 2015 vintage — as a respite from the old-school 2007. In many cases, the current releases on the market are indeed the best wines from Argentine wineries. So, try a few and understand the excitement. — Contributing Editor Stuart Pigott and CEO/Editor James Suckling