ARGENTINA

Photo from Matt Broch on unsplash

For years, Argentina has ranked as the fifth largest wine producer on the globe (after the headlining trio of France, Italy, and Spain, and after the United States). But you’d never know that by a look around American retail shelves.

The short story
That’s because the Argentines traditionally have consumed most of their wines at home (annual consumption is around 5 gallons a person). They only began exporting their wines in earnest in the mid 1990s.

Argentina kept things close to its vest because it didn’t have much to show the world until just recently, either. Argentine wines were known as simple, rustic, thin, and even tired. In addition, they were made from grapes (such as Criolla) that simply had little appeal to anyone but an Argentinean.

How that has changed.

After decades of economic, social, and political turmoil, Argentina got down to the business of wine by following the lead of its neighbor to the west, Chile. Argentina husbanded its vineyards (and planted better strains of grapevines), cleaned up and modernized its wineries, made wines that would appeal to international markets—and then priced those wines accordingly.

Check out the numbers: In 1994, exports of Argentinean wine to the U.S. were 389,000 gallons. By 2022, the number was 20 million gallons.

It’s all good
Most of Argentina’s vineyards grow grapes on a north-south axis along the Andes mountains in the far west of the country. The salient characteristics of grape growing and winemaking in those vineyards are these: abundant sunshine (some 320 days a year), high altitude (cool nighttime temperatures), and abundant water from the melting snows of the Andes.

Argentine grapes
Argentina makes outstanding wines with grapes that are far less successful elsewhere.

Malbec, for example, plays a minor role in the blending of Bordeaux reds—and that has been its highest profile on the world wine stage for years (although it is also quite serviceable south of Bordeaux, in the region of Cahors). But Malbec from Argentina continues to impress and, year after year, better versions flow from the Andes to our tables.

The story is similar with an Argentine white grape, Torrontés.

Torrontés is the most widely planted white wine grape in Argentina and has always made everyday white wine there because it is prolific and fairly easy to grow. (In Chile, where it is called the Muscat of Austria, it makes a thin wine that is the preferred base for distilling the clear spirit, pisco. Torrontes also makes rivers of wine in Spain.)

However, when Torrontés is cropped back on the vine in Argentina’s dry and elevated vineyards, and treated with skill in its wineries, it makes for delicious, thirst-quenching, freshly crisp whites at terrifically reasonable prices.

In general, the story of Malbec and Torrontés is the story of modern Argentine wine: much flavor combined with little cost.

Argentina possesses the vineyard lands, soil, climate, and skill to make good wine and, because its labor costs are low, the country delivers on waves of well-made wine priced lower than most countries exports.

The proof of this is how Argentina can successfully manage the wine grapes native to or predominant in other countries, grapes such as Chardonnay, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah.

These international varieties also exit Argentina in wines that are well-structured, delicious, packed with fruit, and—above all—well-priced.

Eats
Torrontes is the kind of white that is a true helpmate at the table. Young, fresh, crisp, moderate-alcohol white wines are the answer to the issue of what to serve with spicy, boldly flavored, or salty cooking.

They also go well with vegetarian cuisine—a surprisingly difficult match for wine, both white and red—and with cold dishes such as gazpacho or chilled chopped salads, again unexpectedly hard-to-match foods.

Torrontés is also an excellent apéritif by itself, or served alongside nibbles such as smoked meats or fish, nuts, and crudités.

What’s for dinner with Malbec? Well, at the top of the list is what every Argentinean would choose first: the national meat, beef.

The average Argentinean downs around 150 pounds of beef each year. (The average North American: around 70 pounds). The male Argentine, on many a day, will enjoy two meals centered on beef. Beef loin. Beef ribs. Beef rump. Beef.

It is delicious beef: lean, because the cattle graze on grasses, not grain. Tender, because the animals meander over the Pampas, the enormous, flat heart of Argentina west of Buenos Aires.

Cooking beef in the Argentine way might mean grilling it, or roasting tenderloins of it in the oven, with nary a grain of salt or fleck of pepper.

Many of the ersatz cheeses that Argentina produces—“Parmesan” or “Cheddar”—go well with Malbec because they are both firm and fatty. Malbec’s tannins, though soft, are perfect for fatty foods.

And because Argentina was settled by so many immigrant Italians, many pasta preparations work well with Malbec. Try dishes such as pasta puttanesca (a sauce of tomatoes, black olives and peppers), with a thick slice of grilled Provolone cheese set aside it, topped wit a splash of green olive oil. Muy gusto.