Toasting to Argentine wine

There's no doubt that Argentine wines offer terrific value and will continue to gain sales and share in India

Argentina has had a turbulent history: colonised by Spain in the 1500s, it gained independence in the early 1800s but thereafter deteriorated into civil war till 1861. There was peace and prosperity till 1930, after which a series of military coups and counter-coups caused instability, and the country returned to a comparatively peaceful existence only in the 1980s.

The lasting image of the country is, of course, that of Eva Peron (wife of President Juan Peron and first lady from 1946 to 1952) as immortalised by Madonna in the 1996 movie Evita — and of footballer Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” in the 1986 World Cup.

Wine had been produced in Argentina by the Spanish conquistadors since the 1500s. Although Argentina is today the fifth-largest wine producer in the world (it churned out 1.34 billion litres of wine in 2015), nearly 80 per cent of that is still consumed in the country itself. So its wine exports are way behind most other wine-producing countries.

However, that is changing fast with better-quality wines from its leading producers.

About 70 per cent of Argentine wine is produced in the Mendoza region, and 80 per cent of the wines are reds. Mendoza, in the lee of the Andean mountains with vineyards at altitudes of between 2,800 and 5,000 feet, is watered by snow from the mountains and has an ideal climate for wine grapes.

The principal grapes here are Malbec and Bonarda (both reds) and Torrontes (white) — relatively unknown elsewhere, these have become the “signature grapes” of Argentine wines.

The leading Argentine wine producers include Archival-Ferrer, Caliterra, Catena Zapata, Dominio del Plata, Trapiche, Trivento, Vino Cobos and Zuccardi, many of which are available in India. A pioneer of the move towards quality wines was undoubtedly Nicolas Catena, who planted the first Malbec vines as far back as 1902.

Catena wines burst upon the world wine scene with the 94 points awarded by Robert Parker to the Catena Alto Malbec 1996. The company is headed by the founder’s grandson (also named Nicolas Catena).

Another pioneer is Sasana Balbo of Dominio del Plata (“Region of Silver”, now renamed as “Susana Balbo Wines”), the first woman to graduate from Mendoza’s Don Bosco School of Enology in the 1970s. After 20 years as an international consultant winemaker, she founded her winery in 1999, and is called the Queen of Torrontes for her contributions in developing this grape varietal in the country.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Argentine wines offer terrific value, and will continue to gain sales and share in India in the years to come. Try them.

Wines I’ve been drinking: The 2013 Ben Marco Malbec (Wine Spectator 89 points/Rs 4,100 in Bengaluru) is a blend of 92 per cent Malbec and 8 per cent Bonarde grapes from vineyards at between 650 and 950 metres altitude in the Uco Valley of Mendoza.

Aged 11 months in French and American oak, this very dark red wine I quaffed at Chef Abhijit Saha’s Fava restaurant in UB City has an intense aroma of ripe red fruit and coffee beans, with a soft and full-bodied mouthfeel and taste of currants and jam and a nice long finish. Yummy!

As the Spanish-speaking Argentines say, Salud!

Alok Chandra is a Bengaluru-based wine consultant