Seattle’s Capitol Hill Wineblog

My high school Spanish teacher was from Argentina.  Señora Romeri, god bless her, was true to her nationality and I owe her a great deal.  To this day I have sharp, purposeful pronunciation whenever I speak Spanish.  In fact, if we didn’t say “Argentina” correctly in her presence, Señora would shout “¡Que ruido!” (“What noise!”).  She also welcomed bouquets of roses as apologies for not performing well on tests or quizzes.

Vineyards below the Andes Mountains in Argentina

 At our tasting the other night, there was a distinct buzz in the air over that night’s regional choice: South America.  And I mean the excitement was truly palpable.

 I have people in the shop and friends tell me, “can you recommend a good Argentine Malbec? I’m so into them right now.” In part, I can hear a tinge of interest in their voices as well as a touch of “I’ve heard it’s the big thing right now.” So why is South American wine so hip? 

 The first answer is not at all romantic, in the wine sense:  marketing.  While Argentina’s first vines were brought from Spain and planted in the 1500s, the bulk of the wine making has been focused on massive production for sake of consumption.  And the Argentines do drink a lot of their own wine, well over 80% that is produced every year, according to some statistics.   At one point, Argentina produced more wine than any other country outside Europe; given Australia’s and New Zealand’s volume of production, that fact is really saying something.

 At some point the Argentine wine producers turned full-tilt towards creating exportable wines.  They saw lots of money in it, and had predictable growing seasons and conditions— a lot of this had to do with certain grapes which are imminently more “growable” than some European varietals; Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Sangiovese are pretty resilient grapes. But Pinot Noir is notoriously difficult to grow and maintain.  This explains two things:  one, why we tend to see so much of the same kinds of wine from Argentina (Malbec, Cabernet Sauvingnon, for examples), and also why a great deal of it tastes very similar.  The producers pumped out tons of cases of predictable, affordable wines.

 But the larger production and big profits over the years has yielded some very good things— for one example, there is room for larger producers to start side projects that are entirely organic.  One example is the very new Cameleon label.

 Started as a fully organic project, Cameleon is run by the well known producer Jean Bousquet (who has the money to start and continue such a project).  The fruit is sourced from the beautiful vineyards in Tupungato, located in the foothills of the Andes Mountain range.  As one might imagine, the foothill soil is semi-arid (ideal for growing vines) and the day to night temperatures are quite extreme, which helps with pest and fungus control.   The wines are all 100% organically produced, with absolutely no use of pesticides or fertilizers.  And they’re good too!  Better yet, they’re affordable, ranging from $9 to $18 a bottle.

 There is, by the way, a Chilean project with the same profile:  the stunningly huge producer Concho y Toro has started a delightfully progressive and outrightly beautiful new set of wines under the label Cono Sur.  The Cono Sur website is well worth a visit.

 Now, the other thing to know and appreciate about Argentinia’s large level of production is that it has a lot of land and geographic variation— over 1000 miles of length of variation.  The northernmost wine growing area (Salta) is about as far from the southernmost (Rio Negro) as Seattle is from Los Angeles.  The conditions are remarkably different, and so are the wines.

 The region that is best known is Mendoza, mostly because wines from its region most often exported to the US.  However, the other regions produce great wine, and hopefully we will start seeing more of it soon.  Keep an eye out for these other regions, listed here from north to south: Jujuy, Salta, Tucuman, Catamarca, La Rioja, San Juan, La Pampa, and Rio Negro.  The last, Rio Negro, is producing some incredible wines, but thus far few of them arrive in the US.

 So, if you want to be really hip, start to ask your wine shop to look out for Argentine wines from regions other than Mendoza, as well as varietals like Torrontes, Bonarda, or Sangiovese.

 We’re going to pour a round of Argentine wines at tonight’s tasting, so after I hear what people liked and why, I’ll post about the results.

 Best,

 Haj