Mendoza

I spent last week in the city of Mendoza in western Argentina, in the shadow of the Andes. Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina---you have probably heard of their Malbec which is their speciality, although they grow all the other European varieties as well. And they make wine in industrial quantities--one of the bigger wineries makes 24 million litres a year: the mind boggles. So I spent the week doing wine tours.  Hard work--three wineries a day, but I persisted in the interests of science and this blog, you understand.


I went on three all day tours with Ampora Wine Tours (highly recommended--groups of 4  to 8 and excellent knowledgeable English speaking guides). This involved a lot of tasting but also good company from many different countries, and on each tour an excellent lo..o..o..ng lunch, usually a traditional asado (barbeque) with yet more wine.


Most of the huge quantities of wine that these vineyards produce is for domestic consumption although the US is becoming a significant export market and some goes to Europe. However Argentina imports no wines at all (lots of politically motivated import controls) and so the industry is a bit incestuous---they make wine to suit the local taste but the local taste has no comparators since there are no imports of other countries' wines and not many Argentines travel abroad. 


However  it seems that wine has been made in Argentina  for hundreds of years. Not only in Mendoza but  also in Cafayate in north western Argentina where I was last week. Originally the Jesuits planted vines to produce wine for the holy communion --and one suspects they had a glass or three on the side. Then in the 19th and 20th century the huge waves of immigrants especially from Italy but also from Germany brought their taste for wine with them. Wine is still the alcoholic beverage of preference in Argentina. 


Is it any good?...well...I think it suffers the same problems (or exhibits the same virtues, if you prefer) as US and Australian wines. It is very "in your face". It is consumed very young. There is lots of oak. Subtle, it ain't. I am told that this is to suit the local palate which wants robust [raucous] wine to stand up to and cut the grease from the traditional meat-based diet and especially the traditional barbeque.


However there does seem to be a trend to making better wine. The locals  no longer trot along to the vineyard next door with a bucket to collect the wine for Sunday's asado . Wine making was always a family affair but with Argentina's economic  troubles over the past few decades many of the vineyards have been sold to European wine makers. And the younger generation of these traditional wine-making families are scaling down the quantity, becoming scientific in their approach to wine-making, and focusing on quality. Although the standard is still to drink the whites within a maximum 18 months and the reds within 2 to 3 years, some premium reds are now being kept for --shock, horror! 6 or even 8 years! So there is an expectation that their wines will continue to improve.


They certainly seem to have the conditions for it. Although Mendoza and the surrounding country is a desert, that has its benefits apparently. All the water comes from irrigation, not rainfall. This means that the wineries can control the exact amount of water that they give each vine. And because of the desert conditions there is minimal risk of pests or funguses. The biggest risk is hail. Apparently there can be hailstones as big as tennis balls which can destroy a car, let alone a bunch of grapes. These hails storms are random and very localised however and so one field of vines can be destroyed and the next field untouched. The growers deal with this by having their fields dotted around in different localities and also by covering at least some of their better  vines  with a protective netting (see photo). Also, most of the wineries supplement their own grapes with grapes bought in from other vineyards, thus hedging their bets. And they are very scientific about it all (see photos).


The vines are grown in two different patterns. First,  the traditional rows of vines running east/west to get the maximum of the desert sun with limited water  thus producing red grapes with thick skins with lots of tannin and concentrated sweetness. Second, for the whites (particularly Torrontes) as canopy of vines trained across wires so that the bunches of grapes hang down under the canopy protected from the sun and so have thinner skins and are more juicy.


( Tangent:-By the way, the Torrontes wine, which you may not have heard of is my favourite of their whites. It is a wholly Argentinian grape variety and it is nick-named "the liar" because when you smell the wine, it smells very fruity and sweet but when you taste it is  dry, with high acidity and a slightly floral bouquet. This may be because it originated from grafting a muscat grape onto a local criollo vine. Anyway, it is very good.)


There is also a difference of altitude. Cafayate is very high up ---3000 meters and thus cooler making it more suited to the whites. Mendoza is much lower down --about 400 meters and thus with more intense heat. However in Mendoza they are starting to move up into the higher areas as well --up to 1500 meters, and this seems to be the new frontier of wine-making in Mendoza. 


Now, Mendoza is not only about grape vines. It is also the capital of olive growing--Argentina is a large olive producer but all its olive oil is sold to Brazil so you never see it. The Mendoza area  also grows wonderful fruits and nuts--and lavender. 


So how does it do all this, when it is a desert? Well, as mentioned above the secret is irrigation. Mendoza, although relatively low in elevation and relatively flat in terrain,  is very close to the peaks of the Andes which are full of rivers bringing the melted snow down from the high peaks. 


Centuries ago the indigenous people figured out how to harness this resource and began channelling the water from the mountain streams into canals to water their lands. The Argentines have been building on that idea ever since. The largest river is now dry (and its bed is now filled with diggers taking away gravel for building purposes). It has been dammed up in the mountains and its water contained in reservoirs from which large canals flow into smaller and smaller ones leading to each area on the slopes and the plains below the mountains which needs water. 


The channels are strictly regulated and water does not flow indiscriminately. You need an abstraction licence to take water. The vineyards are allowed to have a pond to hold reserves of water that they can drip-feed out to their vines when they want it. The streets of Mendoza and all the outlying towns and villages have mini-canals running beside each street. At first you think they are open drains but they are water channels. 


All the streets of Mendoza are tree-lined. In fact I've never seen a city with so many luxurious trees and lovely parks with fountains playing. It is a very pleasant and liveable city. When you look closer you see that the trunks of the trees lining the streets disappear below ground where they are fed by underground canals. The locals seem to take it all for granted and there is no water rationing in the city as far as I could see. But I thought it was quite remarkable and another example of how a desert can be made to bloom with the precious commodity of water.


Here are a few pictures. I am now in Bariloche (pronounced "Barylochay") in the last lap of my Argentinian travels.  It is now definitely Autumn and I have had to dig to the bottom of my suitcase for my warmer clothes. I cross the Andes on Saturday, but I'll do a post about Bariloche with pictures before then. 

Grapes are covered by netting to protect them from the random hail storms which can totally destroy a crop 

Me harvesting grapes in a competition we had on one of my wine tour---my team lost the competition !

A truck bringing the crates of grapes back to the winery for sorting and crushing

Grapes are initially sorted by hand to remove leaves and bad grapesAdd caption

Mechanism takes over and the wines are pushed down into the first fermentation vat by this screw

During its first fermentation the grapes rise to the surface to form a cap which needs to be broken up and recirculated

wooden wine press--a museum piece these days

Inside one of the huge wooden barrels which used to be used for fermentation

Stainless steel vats are the order of the day in most wineries--dozens and dozens of them

Concrete vats are starting to be used by some wineries

You don't see much of this! Argentinian wine is kept only for a couple of years (see blog)

Ah, that's more like it! A real barrel!

Uh....thousands of barrels!

The vineyards go on for miles and miles

The super-modern winery of O. Fournier

State of the art cloning techniques are used to create the perfect vine for each  location

Science is definitely important--although all the vineyards stress that wine making is still an art

Tasting fermenting wine from the vat

a flight of wine for tasting on one of the wine tours

drinking again

Mendoza is not only about grape vines--lavender is another crop as well as all manner of fruits and nuts and huge quantities of olives.

An irrigation pond at one of the wineries

A traditional asado--no fancy barbeque equipment

Meat is the principal diet and the markets are full or all sorts of meats for the asado

Many of these unmentionable innards  make their way onto the asado too

Despite Mendoza and the surrounding country being a desert, a unique irrigation system designed by the indigenous people centuries ago means every street is tree-lined and the many parks are full of fountains (see blog)

The unique and highly effective irrigation system that keeps Mendoza green (see blog)