Bottled in Mendoza: Argentina

Chris Ord  discovers a drop from the seventies swinging the right way in Argentina’s Mendoza wine region. 

“Grapes alone don’t make good wine, philosophy does and that’s our philosophy; always has been,” says Hubert Weber, Chief Winemaker at Bodega Weinert, one of Argentina’s premier wineries.

“And the proof is in the tasting,” he continues as he pours the collection’s star wine, the 1977 Malbec Estrella, translated literally as ‘star’ and regarded by some - including international wine guru Robert Parker - as the finest Argentine Malbec ever produced. So fine that it’s a prize pour for discerning tasters the world over, including one businessman who liked it so much he opened his own wine importing business in Taiwan just so he could get his hands on a bottle without having to travel across the Pacific.

This was the wine I’d traversed South America to find. The same wine that bodega patriarch Don Bernardo Carlos Weinert has spent nearly thirty years nurturing as his first, and perhaps best drop of tinto.

Incongruously, it was in the wilds of Bolivia that the first whiff of Bernardo’s legendary Estrella poured itself into my imagination, setting me forth on an odyssey that would see me head thousands of kilometres overland to Argentina with nothing more in mind than the sound of a fresh de-corking echoing around a dusty cellar.

In the tiny mountain village of Sorata – a day’s bus ride from Bolivian capital La Paz and about as far from any winery in the world as you can get – an American sparked the intrigue.

“In this backwater you’ll find nothing but corked Bolivian vinegar,” he said, drier than a hard-oaked cabernet. “But I’ll tell you where you can find the best bottle this side of Bordeaux,” he said. “Sitting in a dusty cellar in an old winery in Mendoza, Argentina. And I tell you from experience, it’s a swinging vintage: seventy seven.”

For many Argentines, 1977, the year of Weinert’s virgin Estrella bottling, was one year in a decade best relegated to the dark pages of history. Journalists, opposition leaders, educators and dissidents; tens of thousands disappeared during the country’s brutal Guerra Sucia – or Dirty War – a murderous campaign known as El Proceso carried out under then-president Jorge Videla. But while some took to the streets to protest yet again against social and political disorder, others quietly looked to the future, working their craft in the hope of better times. For Weinert, that craft was winemaking.

A Brazilian immigrant of German stock, Weinert purchased the century old, dilapidated winery in 1975 on the proceeds of his success in the transportation industry. And while his hope lay in the future, his reasoning lay in the past. In particular, in the ancient history of the Mendoza region.  

Long held as the heart of Argentina’s wine industry it, like the Estrella itself, has spent years ripening in the dry and gentle sun of a high elevation desert climate. Nestled in the shadows of the eastern Andes, the semi-arid land was once home to the Huarpe Indians. Skilled agriculturists, the Huarpes built an intricate system of acequias, or stone irrigation channels based on methods originally gleaned from the Incas. The channels worked to harness the melt of glacial ice from the nearby Andean peaks, keeping fields well fertilised for the growth of potatoes and corn. Over 1,000 years later, it’s the same irrigation system that Bernardo believes helps the soil, and by extension his vines, produce Weinert’s stubbornly traditional range of reds and a sprinkling of whites.

Although the region’s viticultural history goes back over 500 years to the Spanish colonists, it’s the 19th and 20th Century influx of French, Italian and Spanish settlers who are responsible for the modern industry and its tastes.

Historically, Argentine wine has been imbibed mostly by Argentines, and for good reason: bodegas struggled to match international quality measures. But it didn’t take long for the steady influx of European aristocrats, artists, businessmen and politicians fleeing the violence of WWII to demand a palatable tipple, which in turn pushed Argentine wine quality onwards and upwards. And it’s a trajectory which, riding on the coat tails of the popularity of Chilean wine, isn’t about to abate, especially as many Argentine producers continue to focus on upgrading technology and importing oenological expertise.

Arriving in Mendoza, within decanting distance of my quarry, it was obvious that Argentines take their quaffing seriously. Restaurants feature wine lists the length of most wine guides. Many have window-front cellar rooms which, rather than selecting blindly from print, guests are encouraged to enter and judiciously select from walls stacked to the wooden rafters with hundreds of bottles. Some bear birthdays harking back more years than I can remember. The ’77 Estrella is a notable absentee among the Weinert offerings.

“Esta moy especial vino,” notes my wine room host before flipping easily to deadpan English: “You’ll have to go to the cellar door.” Instead I select a 1999 Alta Vista Malbec Premium which glides down softly alongside a typically thigh-size and succulent bife de chorizo accompanied by caramelised onions, goats’ cheese and herb glazed potatoes. The European flair for fine but focused dishes has been further refined in Argentina – the emphasis on singular flavours rather than the over-complicated mouthfuls.

In France, Malbec is a rather obscure grape, used in minor amounts in Bordeaux and known as Auxerrois in Cahors. In Argentina, it has become the flagship single varietal wine, famous for sublimely accompanying the nation’s cotton soft steaks. It is Mendoza’s raison d’être.

After a night enjoying Mendoza’s endless selection of restaurants, boutique wine shops and an array of ice-cream and chocolate shops (the sweet engine rooms for Mendoza’s second most famous export), and with ripened thoughts of a dusty cellar coddling an Estrella bottle, I contact the winery and arrange a tour.
With wife and mother-in-law in tow, I’m given a perfunctory tour through the working estate. Set against the Andes backdrop, the winery drips pure history, of which Weinert is obviously a fanatical caretaker. While happy to import the skills of experts like Hubert, along with technology and method, he has kept as much of the original bricks and mortar as possible. Built in 1890, the estate still breathes through its architecture the Spanish colonial life it once had.  
As we head down below into the cellars, the temperature drops along with Hubert’s voice. Here is where the red gold lurks, somewhere amongst theses gigantic and ancient barrels. The smell is wooden, the tannin aromas brutal, but tantalising. I spy dates marked on barrel ends – plenty of 90s ageing silently, sucking in character like a sponge. But I know the ’77 is well beyond the barrel, rather it’s meditating in bottles somewhere in a corner.
Hubert leads us to the luxurious confines of the homestead mansion where has lined up a wine tasting; my first serious foray.  Noting that I’m a wine lover, not connoisseur, Hubert offers his tasting advice as we begin the session: “It’s important to open all your senses: smell, sight, taste, hearing.”

“Hearing?” I’m new to the peculiarities of professional wine tasting, but this was beyond peculiar. Maybe Hubert had hosted one tasting too many.

He just smiles: it’s his favoured in-joke, a well-worn entrée for those lacking a well-trained nose. He raises his glass toward mine and with a hearty “Cheers!” dispels the rumour that the Swiss lack humour.  

A Carrascal 2001 is the first jab, followed by a  bridge to the main fare, a Gran Rose Mont Fleury 2002.

I prepare to swing a few questions his way in a feeble attempt to emulate the professional demeanours Hubert would be attuned to when hosting wine world luminaries such as Heik Milne, who once commented that the Estrella was “the best bottle out of Latin America.” Before I can gather myself he’s splashed some 2001 Pedro del Castillo Cabernet Sauvignon into the tasting glass.

Upon swilling one of the heavier glasses – a 1999 Cab Sav – my wife Neve enters the deconstruction fray rather eloquently. “Heath,” she says in answer to Hubert’s query about what subtleties are wafting up our noses.

Heath? Are you kidding?

“What else?” Hubert pushes Neve, as though he’s actually taking her seriously.  “Ash. Definitely Ash.”

I can’t help it. Ash? My laughter is beyond raucous, it’s rude.

“Correct. On both counts,” says Hubert, who knows these things. Unbelievable but apparently true. How sobering.

Throughout our tasting, I have one eye pinned firmly on the bottle of Estrella perched at the end of the row. It’s at this point that I realise, in double vision, the value of the spittoon.

And so it’s in slow motion that I watch Hube’s hand reach for the bottled grail, the very reason for my quest. For over a month and across a continent, I’ve traced this wine, one that comes close to surpassing my years. Its mystique and legend have been enough to carry my intrigue and thirst across vast Andean deserts. The cork does not pop, it sings its once in a lifetime song which swims off the Wienert mansion walls. And the Estrella does not pour into my glass, it glides.  

Was the journey worth it? Undoubtedly. What complimentary bar tab isn’t? But in describing Argentina’s holiest of holy wines, how do I step in the heavy footsteps of the world’s Robert Parkers? How do I put into words something that is worth Bernado’s thirty years of patience, a nation’s palatal love affair that has endured internal war and misery, born of a staple that has travelled from Europe and grown on Incan foundations?

Well, twelve bottles of Weinert’s best tells me that the Estrella lights up the palate with a veritable blanket of bouquets and flavours. “Earth, wood, leather!” I begin, the joliment fuelled by an over-exuberance that only comes with having summited a mountain completely and utterly drunk.

“Its rich complexity alerts you immediately to its vintage years but speaks with the grace of a well-groomed, and sincere, statesman,” I try again. “But unlike (Argentine President) Kirchner, there are no wrinkles here.” I’m amusing myself with what I feel is a well-considered commentary.

My wife, mother-in-law and Hubert are not at all amused. And so I concede that my well-lubricated and decidedly amateur appreciation is offered in terms undoubtedly never to be sanctified by the wine tasting aristocracy. I feel vindicated by the fact that I warned Hubert that I’m no wine writer of professional standing. Drinker, yes.

Perhaps it’s best left to the experts, which according to Hubert includes my wife who notes that the Estrella “has a fruity aroma, plums, cherries, spices, chocolate and dried fruit.” No ash, nor heath, then? Apparently not.

DETAILS


www.bodegaweinert.com – take a tour around the Bodega Weinert in Mendoza (English link top left)
www.winesofargentina.org – check out what other sublime varietals are being made in Argentina
www.wine-searcher.com – purchase a bottle of Weinert’s 1977 Malbec Estrella online.
www.geographia.com/argentina/ - an overview or Argentina
www.sectur.gov.ar/eng/menu.htm - and more Argy
www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/argentina/ - what the big boys have to say
http://argentinastravel.com/- and the not so big