If nature had kept its secret, the city of Mendoza and the surrounding wine country wouldn’t exist. The province of Mendoza, along with parts of San Juan, Entre Rios and San Luis, make up Argentina’s Cuyo region –from the indigenous Huarpe word ‘cuyum’ for ‘the country of deserts’ or ‘sandy earth.’ But while the local indigenous population may have called the area ‘sandy,’ they knew that it offered much more. Beyond the vast expanse of barren valleys lies a progressive mingling of powerful blue rivers and reddish-brown gorges, signs of the majestic Andes mountain range to the west. And in the Andes, the Huarpe saw the key to transforming the area forever.

The local indigenous innovation was a remarkable irrigation network, bringing fresh snowmelt from the Andes for agricultural production in the area. When European colonists arrived in the 1500s, they recognized the local ingenuity and expanded on it by creating a system of acequias – a grid of open-air canals that spread across the city of Mendoza. Mendocino pride in the engineering marvel is displayed everywhere: the sycamore, poplar and eucalyptus-lined streets, the four-square block Parque Independencia in the city center, the surrounding four smaller two-square block parks, and the nearly 1,000-acre Parque San Martin. Today, the city of Mendoza has over 50,000 trees (one for every two inhabitants) and is the capital to Argentine wine production.

Wine making in the region is a tradition that goes back over 500 years to the first Spanish colonists and Jesuits, later expanded by the 19th-century waves of French, Italian and Spanish immigrants. While the new inhabitants at the time could not have known, they were sitting on another of the local area’s secrets, ideal conditions for growing high quality grapes: high elevation (3000-5000 feet), disparate temperatures between day and night (allowing the grapes to mature gradually), 250 days of sun a year, and the desert alluvial soils. As an added bonus, these characteristics create an environment inhospitable to fungi and other agricultural pests, practically eliminating the need for pesticides.

Although Argentina has long been the fifth largest producer of wine, it was for the most part kept within the country. In 1970, per capita wine consumption in the country was 92 liters per person (as compared to five in the US and 110 in Italy, the top consumer at the time). Indeed, during the 1980s and 90s, South American wine was synonymous with Chile, not Argentina. But Argentine wines have exploded onto the scene in the past four years. Much of this is due to the devaluation of the Argentine peso (pegged to the dollar during the 1990s, it has been floating around three-to-one since 2002), making exports much more appealing. Also, as beer and liquor started to take a hold on Argentine alcohol consumption, more wine has been available for export (per capita consumption stands at about 34 liters today. as compared to 8 in the US and 55 in Italy). As a result, Argentine wines have increasingly wowed international reviewers, especially Malbec, which has become the cornerstone of the Argentine wine industry (it’s no coincidence that it also happens to be the best wine to accompany beef.) As Clarisa Murekiam, a guide at Terrazas de los Andes states, “Argentina has finally been able to show what it has.”  Read More...