There’s an award in our front office from the International Agricultural Exhibition of 1910 in Buenos Aires, given to Alfred Tanner for three of his Shropshire sheep, writes James Tanner. Over the years, he and his son Craig exported a great deal of cattle and sheep to Argentina, but now, our family’s trade very much flows the other way, with containers of ripe, juicy Malbec, now a staple of the British barbecue.
No one quite knows how and when Britain, as a nation, fell in love with Malbec. My father visited in 1978 but seemed more taken by the Andes and condors than by the wines. I first went there in 1992 at vintage time, only to discover that they were flooding the vineyards through irrigation channels to swell the grapes – something of a no-no for quality wine production.
On my latest visit, just last year, I came back with the sense that Argentina is now a mature wine-producing country, with plenty of ambitious winemakers goading each other to do better. They’re pushing into exciting new areas, identifying top sites in established regions –like the Uco Valley, for example – while also looking beyond Malbec (great though it is) to a wider variety of grape types.
We started in Buenos Aires, which is always interesting, though it’s 980 kms from where the vineyards properly begin around Mendoza. It’s a grand old city, centred on an elegant main square and four satellite squares, bustling with hotels, bars and restaurants where plenty of wine is consumed. It was in our hotel over breakfast that we bumped into wine critic Oz Clarke, who seemed rather impressed that we were off to Jujuy to find some of the highest vineyards in the world. More on that later.
Photos of Mendoza invariably show mountains in the background, but these are actually the pre-Cordillera range, with the true Andes lying beyond, through which the road snakes past Aconcagua and on to Chile. Many wineries lie just south of the city in the Luján de Cuyo region, such as Don Cristóbal, while a few others – including Santa Julia (owned by the Zuccardi family) – are out on the plains toward San Martín. Travel an hour and a half south and the pre-Cordillera peters out and the landscape opens into gently sloping vineyards nestled right beneath the Andes themselves. This is the Uco Valley (Valle de Uco), home to wineries such as Gouguenheim, Lurton’s Piedra Negra and Zuccardi’s Piedra Infinita.
Santa Julia and the Zuccardi family are the source of our popular Las Pampas wines. At the winery’s visitor centre, we chatted with José Zuccardi and his daughter Julia who oversees the welcoming of 90,000 visitors per year. José told us how his great-great-grandfather came over from Campania in Italy, while his father established the vineyard in 1963 – turning what would otherwise be desert, without irrigation, into a thriving estate. Today, they employ 1,100 people. “We’re a big family,” José says. They even provide a primary school and a seamstress for the local community.
We met José again down in the Uco Valley, where his son Sebastián has built a striking modern winery. His beloved concrete tanks for ageing wines are on full display, and in true Zuccardi style, there’s also a restaurant – where you can munch on yard-long beef ribs.
Tupungato is one of three sub-regions of the Uco Valley, and it was in an outdoor classroom in the Gualtallary vineyards that we received a lesson in the area's complex geology, Gualtallary itself is one of the standout parajes or localities. The Zuccardis are doing a fantastic job producing terroir-driven wines here, not only with Malbec, but also with Chardonnay too.
Nearby, in the Chacayes paraje (in Tunuyán, another sub-district of the Uco Valley), Bordeaux-based François Lurton has planted 150 ha of vineyard on stony alluvial soils topped with wind-blown silt. François was over for the vintage, so we toured his smart winery together, admiring his Bordeaux-style barrel cellar. His vines are now 10 years into organic cultivation, and they don't plough the soil to preserve the symbiotic relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and vine roots.
Gouguenheim is a smaller operation, located on the way back to Mendoza but still within the Uco Valley. Patricio Gouguenheim, an international businessman and great supporter of his wines through Tanners, sadly passed away last year. Well before that, he brought his sons Gonzalo and Santiago into the business, and Santiago’s wife, Maggie, is also now on board. Together, they’re doing great work. They have 95 ha of vines and a practical, no-frills winery where they produce excellent wines. In the garden, we participated in a fun blending challenge – combining different grape varieties and vineyard plots – which showcased both the importance of blending and the quality of their component fruit.
In Luján de Cuyo, on the famous Route 40 entering Mendoza, is Don Cristóbal, founded by another businessman – this time from the oil industry – Eduardo Lapania. Now 82, Eduardo has been a regular visitor to Shrewsbury over the years. His son, Cristóbal, left economics and banking to run the estate. They have 30 ha surrounding the winery and another 61 ha three kilometres away, also in Luján de Cuyo. Further east on the flatlands, they farm 39 ha in Rivadavia and 17 ha in Junín. We tasted with Diego Medina, head winemaker, and Noelia Verdejo, oenologist, and witnessed their pride in producing Tanners Malbec. This is a great source of both red and white wines across the spectrum.
We then flew up to Salta, in the far north of Argentina, to avoid a gruelling 15-hour drive. From there, it was another three hours by road to Maimará in Jujuy Province, through some of the most spectacular scenery on earth. Just 2.5 hours more and you reach Bolivia – or turn left and you get to Chile. Here on the Tropic of Capricorn, were it not for the elevation, which is 2,400m above sea level, it would be far too tropical for vines. Just up the road is one of the world’s highest vineyards at 3,300m, only 200m below one in Tibet.
We tasted some fantastic wines here, made by Daniel Manzur and his oenologist Tómas at the El Bayeh winery. Given the remoteness of the region, it's been hard to export the wines, but they should be arriving by Christmastime – so watch this space!
Argentina