Argentina is world famous for its Malbec. Six years ago we wrote about Malbec in Report # 5 Argentina’s Magnifi cent Malbec and predicted great things. Since that time, Malbec has been the engine behind an unparalleled 300 percent growth in wine exports. It remains Argentina’s most important grape, with 13 percent of total premium varietal plantings. And Mendoza remains the country’s most important wine region with 69.5 percent of total grape production. More importantly, it is by far the most important region in terms of premium wines, representing 91.5 percent of all bottled wine and 94.1 percent of all wine exported to the US.
However, Argentina produces many more varietals than just Malbec, and good quality wine is produced in many more provinces than Mendoza. In this report, we update our assessment of Malbec and Mendoza but, also, explore the diverse wines and wine regions found in other parts of the country. As part of this exploration, we traveled to Patagonia to meet the winemakers of Neuquén and Río Negro, as well as to Mendoza, and we tasted the wines of San Juan, Salta, and La Rioja, too. Altogether, we tasted almost 600 wines; our evaluations of those wines are in the Tasting Notes and Ratings section at the end of this report.
