The High-Altitude Wines of Argentina

Napa Valley Wine Academy Wine Articles A field of green and yellow plants with a mountain range in the background under a blue sky with scattered clouds.

By Brian Freedman

High-altitude vineyards have become a thing. They’re nothing new, of course—producers have known about the benefits of mountainside fruit for millennia—but the unique character of grapes that have been grown well above sea level has, recently, become more of a focus among growers, winemakers, and sommeliers than ever before.

It makes sense. Following an era during which overly ripe fruit, plush texture, and seamlessly integrated tannins had come to define so-called “good wine,” a swing of the proverbial pendulum back in the other direction was inevitable. The same thing happens in the worlds of music, fashion, film, and beyond.

High-altitude wines are a fascinating sub-category, and while it’s always tricky—and inherently inaccurate—to speak about any particular type of wine in broad terms, there are a number of characteristics that tie most of them together. And nowhere does the concept of what these wines are, come together as viscerally as in Argentina.

According to Martin di Stefano—viticulturist, agronomist, and vineyard manager for Zuccardi— Argentina is the only country in the world that has a consistent wine identity, which, in this case, is that they make mountain wines. Aside from one small area, everything is near or influenced by the Andes. And because it’s a desert in Mendoza, the main growing region of the country, irrigation is necessary (the average is 10 inches of rain per year in the winegrowing areas, yet the grapes need three times that amount), and can only come from the Andes. However, there is only enough water to irrigate 3% of Mendoza, and other crops must be considered, too. The breakdown, then, is that 1% of the irrigation water is for vegetables, 1% for fruit, and 1% for grapes. As a consequence of this, only a very small percentage of the land in Mendoza has been planted to wine grapes: The lack of possible irrigation is a natural limiting factor.

In terms of how high up grapes can be planted in Argentina, that is determined as much by latitude, unexpectedly, as anything else. In the north of the country, closer to the equator and therefore warmer, vines can be planted higher in altitude, whereas further south, away from the equator, grapes can’t climb quite as high up in altitude because it would be too cold. (Conversely, planting at too low an altitude further north in Argentina could result in conditions that are overly warm.)

The Andes themselves consist of four mountain ranges that run north to south, and three of them are in Argentina (one is in Chile). The Cordillera Principal—the main range—is where Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the southern hemisphere, is located; it stretches all the way up to nearly 23,000 feet.

During a visit to Argentina this past autumn (or springtime in the Southern Hemisphere), di Stefano explained that the closer a vineyard is to a mountain, the colder it will be because the cold air falls down more directly toward it without being as dispersed as it is further away. Vineyard managers and planners also have to take the angle of the mountain’s flank into consideration: The steeper the slope of a vineyard, the less risky it is for frost because that slope causes the cold air from the mountains to move over it faster. As a result, the greater risk of frost is toward the top, closer to the mountains themselves, as well as further away, because the cold air settles there as it moves more slowly while the slope diminishes and the land flattens out. Vineyard planning and layout for mountain viticulture is a complex, potentially fraught exercise.

In addition to the altitude itself, soil composition has to be accounted for, as it does everywhere. In the Uco Valley alone, there are 44 different alluvial fans, which has resulted over the millennia in an incredible diversity of soils. This is the only place in the world, according to di Stefano, where you have granitic stones covered by calcareous material, in this case, calcium carbonate. In the Rhône Valley, by contrast, he pointed out, there are granitic soils in Saint-Joseph and calcareous material like limestone in Hermitage, but in the Uco Valley you can have both in one place, in one rock. Because of this diversity, the viticulture has to change from place to place in order to translate the location of a particular vineyard through the lens of the wine. “It’s a nice, beautiful challenge,” said di Stefano.

As for how altitude impacts the character of a wine in the glass, that, again, is difficult to speak of in overly broad terms. But many sommeliers and critics tend to find a particularly crunchy texture to the tannins, a sense of minerality that rings through the entire experience of a wine. The character of the fruit changes from grape variety to grape variety, and winemaking decisions such as barrel aging, wood choice, lees stirring, and more impact the finished liquid. But across all of that, a sense of tension can often be found in high-altitude wines, a feeling of coiled energy. So while wines are grown above the cloud line and therefore subject to more hours of sunlight than their lower-altitude counterparts, they also are often impacted by a more dramatic diurnal shift, with cooler mornings counterbalancing those sunnier afternoons.

What’s difficult to argue with is the increasing importance and prominence of high-altitude wines. And few places on the planet demonstrate what makes them so important as Argentina. It’s a category well worth delving into, and Argentina is one of the single best places on the planet to start that journey.

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Brian Freedman

Brian Freedman is a wine, spirits, food, and travel writer, restaurant and beverage consultant, drinks educator, and event host and speaker. He writes the Wines of the Week column for forbes.com, as well as other wine- and spirits-focused articles and commentaries; contributes to Food & Wine digital; and is a contributing writer for John Mariani’s Virtual Gourmet, among others. He has contributed to JancisRobinson.com, created wine lists and beverage programs for top restaurants and for three dinners at New York’s James Beard House, hosts beverage-focused events around the United States for corporate and private clients, and has traveled to nearly 50 countries to explore their culture and cuisine for his work. He was recognized three times by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association’s Keystone Awards for his ongoing food and drink coverage for Philadelphia Weekly, for which he was restaurant critic and beverage columnist for over five years, and in was awarded a fellowship to the prestigious Symposium for Professional Wine Writers 2019 in Napa, California.