By Jessica Yadegaran for Mercurynews.comUCO VALLEY, ARGENTINA -- Bodegas jut out of the eastern Andes like one of the mountain range's own peaks, a dusty brown the color of shadows.
The scene is spectacular, vastly different from anything I've seen in Northern California wine country. We're used to blue skies and calm rolling hills with a winery carefully plotted every mile or so.
But, in this up-and-coming sub-appellation an hour south of Mendoza's center, winemaking is a little less safe. Viticulturally, it's almost an extreme sport. Vineyards line the base of the snow-capped Andes, and they reach elevations of 4,500 feet.
I visited as the region was coming out of its winter, and spent my time at Bodegas Salentein, the first and largest winery in the area. Andean Indians, and, later, Jesuit missionaries, who settled here in the 16th century and cultivated some of the first vineyards. But the serious stuff started about 10 years ago.
Today, the valley, with its 54 wineries, is known for big variations in temperature between day and night, resulting in darker red wines with mature tannins. It's also much cooler than the rest of Mendoza, "like spring all year," one local told me, so the malbec that grows here tastes different -- it has more mineral and floral characteristics -- than the big, fruity bottlings you might be used to.
This cool climate makes it ideal for growing grapes we don't typically associate with Argentina, such as pinot noir and chardonnay. Folks
who were smart enough to snatch up land here, like the owners of Salentein and Andeluna Cellars, someday might be credited with taking Argentine wines in a new direction.
The vineyards are irrigated with pure mountain snow runoff, which creates a lower.. Read full article
