By Pat Kettles, Wine Columnist at The Anniston Star
The first vestige of winemaking was brought to Argentina by Spanish conquistadors and missionaries who made their way from Mexico to the area in the latter part of the 16th and early 17th centuries. They brought native grape cuttings from their Spanish homeland including varieties not well known today like criolla, still grown in Argentina today, and the common mission grape currently grown in limited quantities in California.
New waves of European settlers came to Argentina in the early 1800s, bringing vine cuttings from Spain, Italy, and France. Among these cuttings was some malbec that now forms the backbone of the Argentine wine industry. Remarkably, these cuttings originated before the dreaded root loose, phylloxera, afflicted European vines. Most Argentine malbec is planted on original rootstock rather than grafted to disease resistant stock like most vines in other wine producing countries.
Malbec is one of five varietals allowed in the department of Bordeaux in France. It was virtually wiped out in this area by a killer frost in 1956, and it was not widely replanted. Some malbec is grown in California, but American varietal bottlings are rare. It is in Argentina this variety thrives.
Argentina produces and drinks a lot of wine. No wonder tango is the national dance. Argentina is the fifth largest wine producer in the world behind France, Italy, Spain and the United States.
Mendoza, Argentina
Only fairly recently have Argentine wines been significantly exported because the native populace drank most of the domestic wine produced. Tango apparently requires a lot of wine. As long as the populace was willing to drink copious amounts of poor quality wine, there was no need to contemplate exportation.
When years of political instability ended, the Argentine wine industry had been left behind. The industry set out to modernize like Chile, the neighbor to the west, who was exporting significantly improved quality wines primarily to the United States. Like Chile, Argentina's producers adapted winemaking methods modernizing and producing wines in the New World style with the aid of advisors and investors from America and France.
The modernized industry started to focus on malbec. Malbec seems especially suited to the terroir. Although prone to disease in other areas, it's not as susceptible to mildew and rot in Argentina perhaps because it is grown on some of the highest altitude vineyards in the world.
These high altitude vineyards exist in dessert-like conditions with long uninterrupted, dry sunny days. Irrigation is a necessity. In the past winegrowers allowed vineyards to flood. Today better producers use the Andes snowmelt ancient irrigation system more judiciously. They know to produce grapes of great flavor and intensity, yields must be kept low and vines must struggle.
New winemaking practices produce an entirely different malbec than that produced in Bordeaux and in Cahors in southwest of France. Some say malbec is like a weaker version of merlot. The ones I have tasted lately are not tame. They are generally big, easy drinking wines of firm structure.
Aside from drinking wine and dancing the tango, Argentineans eat copious amounts of meat, especially beef. They are known for their open-air spit barbeques called asados where steak, beef ribs, pork sausage and even chitterlings are grilled. Malbec is the perfect wine for the asado and for our traditional charcoal grilled steaks and summer barbeques. It is attractive in today's economy because good malbec can be had at a reasonable price.
...Click here to access Pat Kettle's full article from The Anniston Star
Don't confuse your asado with your parrilla. Do your research.
ReplyDeleteNoel,
ReplyDeleteFor starters I, the webmaster of this site, did not write the article. Pat Kettles, a wine columnist of the Anniston Star did.
Second, I think I need to defend Pat a bit here. I am not sure if you are from Argentina or another Spanish-speaking country, but terminology can change between countries.
The word "parilla" does mean barbeque. It is more commonly used in Spain, in which case many times you will hear Spanish speakers in NYC for instance say "la parilla española" when talking specifically abou the one from Spain.
Second, "parilla" has become a general term Latin-American use to refer to a traditional North-American bbq.
"Asado" is in actuality a open air bbq like you say, specifically common in countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, etc. Still, the author in all fairness is writing for a English Spanish audience in Alabama. In the United States people don't in casual conversation or when artiuclating a idea with words specify open air, coal, gas, steel, etc.
The author should be aware of these cultural difference.
For record, I did do my research before posting this article and happen to a pretty good Spanish speaker...