There is a reason why so many wine varietals grow well in Argentina, and that the two principal wine varietals here are ones that don’t grow well in other areas of the world. Malbec and Torrontes have taken to Argentina because of a couple of geographical characteristics that make up the terroir that don’t exist anywhere else.
The defining characteristic of the wine regions of Argentina is the Andes mountains. This is the second highest mountain range in the world after the Himalayas. With peaks as high as 6900 meters above sea level (Aconcagua which is only a 2 hour drive from the city of Mendoza – 22,000 feet) this mountain range effectively acts as a barrier between the viticulture region to the east of the mountains, and the sliver of Chile and the Pacific Ocean to the west.
Malbec needs a dry terroir to make good wine. Mendoza Malbec gets just this. Mendoza is 1100 km or about 700 miles from Buenos Aires which makes the region subject to Pacific weather patterns more than Atlantic ones. The rain clouds over the Pacific form as moisture evaporates and those rain clouds move in toward the Andes. The Andes are so tall, though, that they force the clouds to drop most of their rain on the Chilean side of the border before the clouds can move over the mountains. Thus, Mendoza gets very little rainfall and averages well over 300 days of sunshine per year.
This dryness in Mendoza is ideal for Malbec as the grape has very thin skins. Thin skinned grapes are more fragile and prone to disease, rotting and mold, which can either kill your harvest or force you to harvest early. Either way you are not going to get good wine. Since it is dry in Mendoza, Malbec can flourish and make the nice young drinkable Argentina wines that we are seeing come out of this region.
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