The wine scene in Mendoza

[Jackson]

Thread Starter.

[Yoosin]

Hello Member #2041,

I will look forward to any information you have available on wine. I am looking for some day trips in July and hoping that visits to some of the wineries will work.

Regards,

Yoosin

[Member #2041]

Argentina is the 5th largest producer of wine in the world, and is one of the few areas on earth where the capability to make world class wine is well proven, yet the real estate values remain extremely low. For example, an acre of prime but undeveloped land suitable for high quality vineyard development in Mendoza ranges from $7-12000 US, and top quality vineyard already under producing vines goes for $15-25000. Compare this to prime vineyard land in California, where those prices run more like $300,000K per acre in the relatively undeveloped Central Coast, to over $1 Million per acre for prime sites in the better parts of Sonoma, or Santa Ynez Valley, to incalculably expensive in the Napa Rutherford Bench area. And arguably, the best sites in Mendoza have have the geographic, climate, and topographic potential to rival the top spots in Napa. Top vineyard sites in Western Europe are similar in cost to those in California. These cost differences, as well as the fact that Mendoza's soil and climate offer every bit the quality potential of top vineyard sites in Europe and California is the underlying reason that there has been a tremendous influx of recent investment from wine producing interests from Europe and the U. S.

Right now, Mendoza is in the throes of a major transformation as a result. The number of wineries has exploded, growing tenfold in less than a decade, and most of those are either not yet in production, or have been producing product for no more than 3-5 years. In addition to being an avid consumer of fine wines, I have always had a personal dream of owning my own winery. But resource constraints have precluded that possibility in California for me. In Mendoza, a ten acre producing vineyard, probably the minimum which would be commercially viable, could be bought for less than a quarter million $US. In the U. S. It would not be possible to do this without a several Million dollar initial investment.

So what about the wines? So far, the models for Mendoza's wine industry have been those from Bordeaux, and Napa / Sonoma. The best red grapes have been the same as those from Bordeaux, but one grape in particular, the Malbec, which has mainly been an under-performer in Bordeaux and as a result was not widely planted in California, has happened to thrive in South America. When it grows well, as it does in Mendoza, the best Malbec grapes make wines that have the character and many similar depth of flavors to Cabernet Sauvignon (which predominates in Bordeaux and Napa and Sonoma) but more fruitiness and less harshness. In Bordeaux, the best wines are mostly made from Cabernet Sauvignon, but with some blending of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Malbec, while in Mendoza, the same grapes are generally used, but the Malbec usually dominates the blend. Of course, some wines are made where the other grapes predominate, but that is generally not the case.

Because of the newness of many wineries in Mendoza, the wine tourism industry in the area is FAR less mature than in Europe or California. Most wineries are not set up to handle tourists, and the handful that are tend to try to offer a canned tourism experience. As a result, the vast majority of wineries in the area require appointments to visit. And when you do, they will give you a canned tour, and probably a very restricted tasting of their wines. One must be pretty persuasive on the phone in order to get something different out of them. Unlike California, where the tasting room is viewed as an opportunity to market the wine to the consumer for future use, in Argentina, they tend to want to cover their costs in the tasting, and will not let you try small samples of many wines, but would rather sell you full glasses of a handful of wines. As a result, it's tough to visit more than 3-4 wineries in a given day, and one may have a difficult time tasting a broad enough range of the wines in enough wineries to really get a handle on the area.

There are really two distinct regions of wine production in the area. One is the area around Lujan du Cuyo and Maipu, and the other is the higher altitude area called the Valle de Uco. The Valle de Uco in particular is quite interesting, because it is one of the highest altitude vineyard areas on earth, and as a result, the grapes endure a wider temperature swing during the day, and thus, develop thicker skins and lower crop yields, which results in more intensity of flavor for the resulting wines. Most of the best wines are generally thought to be blends of grapes from both the lower vineyards and the higher ones. This is one other area in which Mendoza wines differ from those of California and Bordeaux.

There are certainly a handful of well established top producers, though, that anyone should try to experience: Catena, Zuccardi, Bodegas Lurton, and Pulenta Estate are some of the best known, with a few smaller boutique producers, such as Tikal, VistAlba, and Achaval Ferrer making some great wines as well. One other producer who's winery itself is so spectacular that it warrants a visit is Salentin, in the Valle de Uco. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is a starting point for wineries to visit.

[ComeOnDown]

Nice report on something I, unfortunately have taken for granted here in Argentina. I have been living here for quite awhile yet my knowledge of the wine industry is miniscule. I don't like to put you on the spot but here it goes. I would like to give a good Argentine wine to my father (he loves wines) to impress him. I'm thinking in the US$ 100 price range, any suggestions?

[Member #2041]

Nice report on something I, unfortunately have taken for granted here in Argentina. I have been living here for quite awhile yet my knowledge of the wine industry is miniscule. I don't like to put you on the spot but here it goes. I would like to give a good Argentine wine to my father (he loves wines) to impress him. I'm thinking in the US$ 100 price range, any suggestions?Frankly, I wouldn't spend that much, although you could, easily.

For me, the best wine I tasted during the entire time I was there was the Achaval Ferrer Quimera 2005. It's a blend of Malbec, Cab Franc, Cab Sauvignon and Merlot. In most places, it's selling for 130-140 pesos a bottle, but Winery still has some left at 108 pesos a bottle. Achaval Ferrer also makes a few single vineyard Malbecs from the Mirador, Altamira, and Bella Vista vineyards which each sell for 300+ pesos a bottle. IMHO, the Quimera is as good or better, although it's possible that in 10+ years of aging, the more costly single vineyard cuvees might emerge to be superior, it will be by a very slight amount, and no way are they worth triple the cost of the Quimera.

I stuck 2 bottles of the Achaval Ferrer 2005 Quimera in my luggage for the trip back - It was the only wine I brought back with me.

IMHO, it was easily comparable in quality to a top tier $80-120 California Cabernet or classified growth Bordeaux. Robert Parker gave this wine a 92, but IMHO, he seriously under-rated it.

If, however, you want something that has label snob appeal as well, and don't mind spending 200-300 pesos for it, I would get one of the following:

Catena Angelica Zapata, VistAlba Corte A, Pulenta Gran Corte, Riglos Gran Corte, or Mendel Unus.

But I don't personally think any of these wines is all that much better than the Achaval Ferrer Quimera.

[ComeOnDown]

Achaval Ferrer Quimera 2005 it is. With my budget I can buy two. One for me and another for my father.

Thanks for the advice.

[Member #2041]

You'll enjoy it. For me, there's not much that I enjoy more in the area of wine than when I find a $30-$40 bottle of wine that holds it's own with the best $100 bottles, but this Achaval Ferrer 2005 Quimera certainly does. BTW, the winery thinks that the 2006, which they just released might even be better (of course, this could be because that's the one they themselves are currently selling) but the one I tasted was the '05 and it really rocks. To me, it's even more impressive that one can get a wine this good for under $40 US, than it would be to find something great for $100. Anything for $100 US a bottle damn well ought to be spectacular, no matter where it comes from.

[Tr Tuga]

I cannot agree more with the suggestion of the Achaval Ferrer 2005 Quimera.

But there are also several other options of course for instance top wines from Pulenta or the Alpha and Beta Crux from O Furnier.

I have wisited several top class wineries. Among Achaval Ferrer twice in different seasons tasting seven wines in their cellar.

There is some top class companies organizeing wine tours with good guides and smaller groups, cost one whole day: 115-135 us, visiting 4 wineries with top wines, with groups not bigger than 6 people.

In theese trips its normally included a lunch with 5 cuorses and 5-6 different wines. In my opinion its a great day.

There is also some spanish speaking tours that are a lot cheaper but normally you don't get to taste the better wines. Cost 65 pesos 2 wineries and one olive oil producer. Done that with pleasure as I speak spanish and its good to compare both experiences.

But when you are in an area like this for afew days my advice is to go for the best experience.

Any more info needed pls ask.

[Member #2041]

A couple more great value Argentine wines that I've tasted in the U. S. For $15 or so a bottle, so they should be in the 50-60 Peso range in Argentina:

Melipal 2005 Malbec (Not their reserve, which costs 2.5x as much)

Clos de los Siete 2006 (this is a blend of Malbec, Cab Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah) This is really beautiful stuff for the price. You need to spend at least twice as much to get anything even slightly better.

[Vaquero]

I'm preparing to move to Arizona for a new job. And I'm already thinking long-term of vacations and a way to spend my frequent flier miles.

Tell me, I know it can get a little chilly, but is Mendoza still worth visiting in June, July or August? Would it be a ghost town? I'm basically looking to escape one type of heat and find another.

[Eurotrashy27]

Guy,

I have fallen in love with Argentina, she is a mistress that has made a nice corner of in the dark side of my brain and guides my moves, when life gets a bit tough up here.

Basically, in about 2-4 years I will have the means to start purchasing real estate. I'm looking at buying some wine land in Mendoza and eventually starting a small scale production. Keep in mind, I'm not looking to make a killing, but would like something that could appreciate with time and could break-even on. This is not a career change, but moreso a hobby of mine that I'd like to take to the next step. Having a place to come to on a regular basis in Argentina would be amazing for me.

Fools' gold? Pipe dream? Or possible with hard work and the right people? I know this is a risky venture, but something that I really really want to do, and its much cheaper at entry level here than in the Bay Area where I currently live.

Plus the women are young and gorgeous in BA (and at the one nightclub spot in Mendoza)

[TejanoLibre]

Guy,

I have fallen in love with Argentina, she is a mistress that has made a nice corner of in the dark side of my brain and guides my moves, when life gets a bit tough up here.

Basically, in about 2-4 years I will have the means to start purchasing real estate. I'm looking at buying some wine land in Mendoza and eventually starting a small scale production. Keep in mind, I'm not looking to make a killing, but would like something that could appreciate with time and could break-even on. This is not a career change, but moreso a hobby of mine that I'd like to take to the next step. Having a place to come to on a regular basis in Argentina would be amazing for me.

Fools' gold? Pipe dream? Or possible with hard work and the right people? I know this is a risky venture, but something that I really really want to do, and its much cheaper at entry level here than in the Bay Area where I currently live.

Plus the women are young and gorgeous in BA (and at the one nightclub spot in Mendoza) A few years back you could buy an old vineyard for as little as $80, 000 dollars.

Not much land, vines not very old but a sound investment.

Number one concern is if you have access to WATER!

Be aware that Argies WILL sell you wine country that gets very little water!

Anyway, my idea was to do the same thing.

Produce wine, drink as much of it as possible and sell whatever was leftover.

Like Bluebell!

TL

[Mountaineer]

I will be in Mendoza for a few days in December getting an introduction to some of the wines I enjoy at home. I will be visiting Mendel, Achaval Ferrer, and Catena Zapata (for wine) and Ruca Malen (for wine and lunch). I will be introducing my 25 year old daughter to Mendoza. She is the 1 of 3 kids who has an appreciation of what a beautiful work of art a great bottle of wine is. She is teaching in Chile and I promised to reward her with this trip at the end of the school year. Do you have any suggestions or advice?

Thanks Mountaineer.

For a.


Argentina is the 5th largest producer of wine in the world, and is one of the few areas on earth where the capability to make world class wine is well proven, yet the real estate values remain extremely low. For example, an acre of prime but undeveloped land suitable for high quality vineyard development in Mendoza ranges from $7-12000 US, and top quality vineyard already under producing vines goes for $15-25000. Compare this to prime vineyard land in California, where those prices run more like $300, 000K per acre in the relatively undeveloped Central Coast, to over $1 Million per acre for prime sites in the better parts of Sonoma, or Santa Ynez Valley, to incalculably expensive in the Napa Rutherford Bench area. And arguably, the best sites in Mendoza have have the geographic, climate, and topographic potential to rival the top spots in Napa. Top vineyard sites in Western Europe are similar in cost to those in California. These cost differences, as well as the fact that Mendoza's soil and climate offer every bit the quality potential of top vineyard sites in Europe and California is the underlying reason that there has been a tremendous influx of recent investment from wine producing interests from Europe and the USA

Right now, Mendoza is in the throes of a major transformation as a result. The number of wineries has exploded, growing tenfold in less than a decade, and most of those are either not yet in production, or have been producing product for no more than 3-5 years. In addition to being an avid consumer of fine wines, I have always had a personal dream of owning my own winery. But resource constraints have precluded that possibility in California for me. In Mendoza, a ten acre producing vineyard, probably the minimum which would be commercially viable, could be bought for less than a quarter million $US. In the USA It would not be possible to do this without a several Million dollar initial investment.

So what about the wines? So far, the models for Mendoza's wine industry have been those from Bordeaux, and Napa / Sonoma. The best red grapes have been the same as those from Bordeaux, but one grape in particular, the Malbec, which has mainly been an under-performer in Bordeaux and as a result was not widely planted in California, has happened to thrive in South America. When it grows well, as it does in Mendoza, the best Malbec grapes make wines that have the character and many similar depth of flavors to Cabernet Sauvignon (which predominates in Bordeaux and Napa and Sonoma) but more fruitiness and less harshness. In Bordeaux, the best wines are mostly made from Cabernet Sauvignon, but with some blending of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Malbec, while in Mendoza, the same grapes are generally used, but the Malbec usually dominates the blend. Of course, some wines are made where the other grapes predominate, but that is generally not the case.

Because of the newness of many wineries in Mendoza, the wine tourism industry in the area is FAR less mature than in Europe or California. Most wineries are not set up to handle tourists, and the handful that are tend to try to offer a canned tourism experience. As a result, the vast majority of wineries in the area require appointments to visit. And when you do, they will give you a canned tour, and probably a very restricted tasting of their wines. One must be pretty persuasive on the phone in order to get something different out of them. Unlike California, where the tasting room is viewed as an opportunity to market the wine to the consumer for future use, in Argentina, they tend to want to cover their costs in the tasting, and will not let you try small samples of many wines, but would rather sell you full glasses of a handful of wines. As a result, it's tough to visit more than 3-4 wineries in a given day, and one may have a difficult time tasting a broad enough range of the wines in enough wineries to really get a handle on the area.

There are really two distinct regions of wine production in the area. One is the area around Lujan du Cuyo and Maipu, and the other is the higher altitude area called the Valle de Uco. The Valle de Uco in particular is quite interesting, because it is one of the highest altitude vineyard areas on earth, and as a result, the grapes endure a wider temperature swing during the day, and thus, develop thicker skins and lower crop yields, which results in more intensity of flavor for the resulting wines. Most of the best wines are generally thought to be blends of grapes from both the lower vineyards and the higher ones. This is one other area in which Mendoza wines differ from those of California and Bordeaux.

There are certainly a handful of well established top producers, though, that anyone should try to experience: Catena, Zuccardi, Bodegas Lurton, and Pulenta Estate are some of the best known, with a few smaller boutique producers, such as Tikal, VistAlba, and Achaval Ferrer making some great wines as well. One other producer who's winery itself is so spectacular that it warrants a visit is Salentin, in the Valle de Uco. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is a starting point for wineries to visit.

[Member #2041]

I will be in Mendoza for a few days in December getting an introduction to some of the wines I enjoy at home. I will be visiting Mendel, Achaval Ferrer, and Catena Zapata (for wine) and Ruca Malen (for wine and lunch). I will be introducing my 25 year old daughter to Mendoza. She is the 1 of 3 kids who has an appreciation of what a beautiful work of art a great bottle of wine is. She is teaching in Chile and I promised to reward her with this trip at the end of the school year. Do you have any suggestions or advice?

Thanks Mountaineer.

For a.Well, I just spent another 6 days in the Mendoza area last week. You certainly have picked 3 of the top producers in Mendel, Achaval Ferrer, and Catena Zapata. Although I personally thought that the Catena presentation comes off as more arrogant and elitist than informative and educational. I might suggest Pulenta Estate instead. It's very close by in the same area, and is considered to be on the short list of the best Mendoza producers as well. Some other good choices would be Alta Vista, Vistalba, Benegas, and Lagarde, in the same general area of Lujan as Mendel is. Most of these are leading edge, very modern technology oriented producers, while Lagarde and Benegas are more traditional (Mendel is a bit of both, using traditional methods and very old estate vines, but having a very up-to-date winemaker).

One other suggestion. Rather than Ruca Malen, I prefer Melipal, which is run by the same ownership, and has the same chef planning the meals as Ruca Malen. Plus, IMHO, their wines are slightly better, and for some reason (possibly the reputation of the restaurant) the lunch is slightly less costly than Ruca Malen's, but it is, simply, spectacular. Also, the winery itself is newer, more dramatic, and somewhat more impressive than Ruca Malen. It is less than 2 miles away from Ruca Malen on the same road. The wine-accompanied lunch I had at Melipal last week was one of the great meals of my life.

If you have sufficient time for an excursion to the Uco Valley, the natural scenery is dramatically beautiful. A couple of operations that are not to be missed in this area are the Clos de los Siete (a major complex of 5 wineries and 7 owners among the most progressive folks from Bordeaux who have invested serious money in the Argentine wine region, and built this amazing complex). The 2nd not-to-be missed operation in the Uco Valley is O. Fournier, which is a state of the art winery and major investment of a Spanish gentleman of the same name.

Salentein is also a spectacular winery complex with it's own world class art gallery, but alas, the wines themselves are are merely average. But it is very informative what sort of ego a person must have to build a world class art museum that is literally in the middle of nowhere abutting the Andes mountains. If you do find yourself in the Uco Valley, another winery I am enamored with is a very small boutique producer named Gimenez Riili. And they are located quite near Clos de los Siete.

[Roxy4]

I really like wine and in Buenos Aires I followed a Spanish course combined with a wine workshop through Amauta Spanish School in Belgrano. The winemaker showed us everything there is to know about wine in Argentina, at least it seemed so to me, not being a sommelier. We tasted many wines from the Mendoza wine regions and now I also appreciate a deep red malbec while before I preferred more sweeter wines and rosadas. Next thing up is visiting Mendoza! We are going the same group that attended the Spanish and Wine course and the excursion is organized through the school. A teacher that joined us just published a nice blog that you might want to read: http://www.spanishschoolsblog.com/spanish-blog/2012/10/11/new-spanish-and-wine-course-at-amauta-buenos-aires/#more-1892 I was just wondering what else there is to do in Mendoza besides visiting wineries? Any suggestions? Gracias

[Member #2041]

I really like wine and in Buenos Aires I followed a Spanish course combined with a wine workshop through Amauta Spanish School in Belgrano. The winemaker showed us everything there is to know about wine in Argentina, at least it seemed so to me, not being a sommelier. We tasted many wines from the Mendoza wine regions and now I also appreciate a deep red malbec while before I preferred more sweeter wines and rosadas. Next thing up is visiting Mendoza! We are going the same group that attended the Spanish and Wine course and the excursion is organized through the school. A teacher that joined us just published a nice blog that you might want to read:

http://www.spanishschoolsblog.com/spanish-blog/2012/10/11/new-spanish-and-wine-course-at-amauta-buenos-aires/#more-1892

I was just wondering what else there is to do in Mendoza besides visiting wineries? Any suggestions? GraciasOther than the wine scene, the main attraction is the recreation opportunities offered by the Andes which are only a bit more than 1 hour drive away. In the Summer, hiking and white water rafting, in the Winter, skiing.

I might add, there is much more to Argentine wine than Malbec - In my personal opinion, the best wines are blends of different grapes, with Malbec being the dominant one, but others such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Bonarda, Petit Verdot and Syrah adding to the complexity of the wine. These other grapes also make interesting wines on their own (I particularly like the Syrah-based wines myself). A couple of other predominantly Spanish grapes, the Grenache and Tempranillo are also interesting both on their own and in blends.