Why Argentina & Chile Are World Leaders In Value Wine

Renowned wine journalist Robert Whitley gives a couple of good reasons as to why:

There are two good reasons why this is so. The first is simply the economics of buying land, growing grapes and making wine in South America. Everything from land to labor is cheaper. The second is a fluke of nature — Argentine malbec.

There is no question about it that the Argentine wine industry owes a lot to the likes of California's Paul Hobbs (he started working with Nicolás Catena back in '88), Italy's Roberto Cipresso (Achával-Ferrer) and France's Michel Rolland, but somehow the grape found in the Mendoza's terroir its perfect home (and today for that matter anywhere near the Andes):

From Argentina, as nowhere else, malbec delivers lushness on the palate, bold fruit aromas and a level of complexity that is absent in most malbec made elsewhere.

And he finishes with a good list of "trusted producers":

The following is a list of Argentine wineries whose well-priced malbecs have scored good numbers in recent reviews by well-known critics, including this one:

Alamos

Andeluna

Bodegas Salentein

Catena

Cruz

Colome (Cafayate, Salta)

Dona Paula

Famiglia Bianchi

Gascon

Luigi Bosca

Melipal

Norton

Terrazas de los Andes

Trapiche

Trivento

The story is worth reading. Don't miss it. 

Nicolás Catena: "Our Argentine Malbec Has No Comparison"

In an exclusive interview to a costa rican newspaper, Nicolás Catena, the man who single-handedly change the argentinian wine industry for the better, makes a couple of striking comments about argentine malbec and california wines. It is well worth reading.

"Our Argentine malbec has no comparison, it has red fruit characteristics and concentration unthinkable in a European wine. And consumers are choosing each day a greater proportion of these New World wines."

About the influence that California wines had on his approach to winemaking:

"In the late eighties we started making wine by abandoning the traditional and old Italian or Spanish styles and started using what I call the California version of the French style of Bordeaux and Burgundy. We changed the time of harvesting, extraction method, we starting fermenting in stainless steel tanks and using small new French oak barrels. For the first time an argentinian winery stopped producing wines with excessive oxidation to make wines that tasted what the international markets were demanding".

This father of the modern argentinean malbec is a very proud man:

"Most of the international critics think that Argentine Malbec is unique in the world of red wines and each day increases the demand for it. It is not comparable to anything else because of the greater concentration, exaggerated smoothness and uniqueness of its fruit."

Thanks to his vision, there is a before and after for the mighty Argentinian Malbec.