Mendoza

I just got back from Mendoza — Argentina’s most notable wine region at the foot of the Andes.  It makes me laugh to write that since I, too, have slogged through my share of blogs from wine writers depicting their enviable adventures to “that precious little villa in Tuscany” or an endless description of that ’49 Latour they sipped on a mountain top in Peru while watching a full lunar eclipse.

Instead of recanting my travels or listing my favorite wine finds (you can and should try to go there yourself and discover your own wines) I want to tackle the slightly sticky subject of style and terroir in Mendoza wines.  For a good introduction to my rant today check out Judd’s blog post on January 7th, if you haven’t already.

First off, I want to go on record as declaring that Mendoza Malbec is one of the most consistently delicious value wines in the world.  You get a whole lotta bang for your buck.  I was able to taste over 60 different Malbecs during my two weeks in Argentina and found nearly all to be brimming with that beautiful cherry/plum fruit and matched with superb acid.

The odd and interesting thing is that the few wines I didn’t particularly enjoy were some of the very top end Malbecs.  In general, these are the wines being produced by the new generation of Winemakers in the region (along with a lot of new money).  They’re the wines created by top dollar foreign consultants, almost exclusively for export.  They’re the wines with the shelf talkers on the bottle neck lauding the 90 + scores bestowed by Parker and Spectator.  They’re the wines I found to taste extremely alcoholic and sweet and dominated by cooked fruit flavors.  Somehow they had stripped away that magnificently bright fruit and spice that makes Mendoza Malbec so special.

Now I realize wine is a subjective thing.  That’s one major reason it’s so special.  Everyone tastes and smells at least a little bit different – nobody is right or wrong.  But, more objectively, I do believe that a grape on a vine has a relatively narrow window of physiological ripeness. The trick for the Winemaker and Viticulturist (one of many tricks) is to pick that grape when the balance of sugar and acid and flavor is PERFECT.  It’s not that different from the tomatoes we grow in the Michel-Schlumberger garden every year.  We’ve all, I hope, tasted the PERFECT tomato, plucked right off the vine with PERFECT color, flavor and texture.  It’s an amazing thing, right?  To make a great wine it makes perfect sense to use fruit that is PERFECT. That’s the very quality of fruit we want to make every Michel-Schlumberger wine.  If the grapes are picked too early you’ll get green, herbaceous flavors and aromas in the wine.  If picked too late you’ll get raisin flavors and aromas (this comes as no surprise since over-ripe grapes are raisins, after all).

And there you have the “secret” to getting a 90 + score from the critics.  Pick late.  Very late.

Winemaker Brunson puts it best – “People talk dry and drink sweet.”  It’s that sweet, chocolate-y, cooked fruit that our brains (and palates) crave, whether we care to admit it or not.  And the excessive alcohol in this style of wine just adds to the perception of sweetness.  Round that out with a big dollop of 100% new oak (i.e., vanilla and smoke) and you’ve got a flavor bomb.

I don’t mean to sound elitist.  I, too, love raisins and sugar and vanilla.  But wine, to me, should be a beautifully elegant thing.  When I taste a fine wine I look for character, not fluff.  And if I want a sweet, ripe libation I’ll sip on some Porto or Amarone.

The take home message?  Don’t listen to Parker and Spectator.  They’ve got us consumers duped into believing that their scores matter.  Don’t be fooled into believing that those superstar consultants are really all that.  They’re superstars because they are getting the 90 + reviews.  It’s a simple, yet vicious, cycle.  Please help to make it stop.

Thank you for drinking good wine…

Tony

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