Spotlights are on the wines of Argentina today

Date: June 1, 2011

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Grim times for Argentina at the moment. The country’s economy is in a state of near collapse, and there’s little optimism that things will right themselves in the near future. But the prospects for Argentinean wine is actually quite good, provided that the quality revolution in the vineyards keeps on track.

Historically, Argentina has produced large volumes of plonk from high-yielding vines liberally fed by Andean irrigation water. You might be surprised to learn that Argentina is actually the world’s fifth largest producer, with 200 000 hectares under vine. But as the sights of producers have turned from the thirsty domestic consumers (who still manage a creditable 40 litres per head each year) towards lucrative export markets, an effort has been made to raise the standard. Indeed, exports now account for 9.1% of production, with most going to the UK and USA, an increase of tenfold over the last four years.

There’s been a lot of improvement and there’s more to come. If I was Chile, I’d be worried, although heavyweight wine expert Tom Stevenson states in last year’s revision of The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopaedia that, ‘at the moment, however, Chile has nothing to fear from Argentina’. But Argentina arguably has more potential than their neighbour, and certainly has the edge in terms of volume. Evidence for Argentina’s potential is provided by the quality of wines produced by the likes of Catena and Bianchi.

To get an idea of the sort of progress Argentina is making, I sampled a cross-section of the wines available on the UK market. This is by no means a comprehensive survey, but it provides an insight into the sorts of wines that Argentina is currently making, and the sort of value they offer. There’s plenty of promise, but evidently a fair way yet to go.

Click on map for larger image

What Argentina really needs is a positive image similar to that currently enjoyed by Australia and New Zealand in the UK market. ‘Brand Australia’ has worked really well: is there any hope for creating a ‘Brand Argentina’? I suspect that this will be held back by the fact that Argentina really is an unknown quantity in the UK. Not many Brits visit, Argentina, and it is seldom in our consciousness. The danger is that without Argentinean wines being sold on the basis of their ‘Argentinean-ness’, they’ll just be yet more international branded wines fighting it out at the £3.99 and £4.99 price brackets. I hope and believe that Argentina has more to offer than international Chardonnay and Cabernet. In particular the likes of Malbec, Torrontes, Bonarda, Sangiovese, Barbera and Tempranillo offer the opportunity to produce tasty wines with some uniquely Argentinean character.

Source: http://www.wineanorak.com/argentina.htm

Clark Wine Center was built in 2003 by Hong Kong-based Yats International Leisure Philippines to become the largest wine shop in Philippines supplying Asia’s wine lovers with fine vintage wines at attractive prices. Today, this wine shop in Clark Philippines offers over 2000 selections of fine wines from all major wine regions in the world. As a leading wine supplier in Philippines, Pampanga’s Clark Wine Center offers an incomparable breadth of vintages, wines from back vintages spanning over 50 years. Clark Wine Center is located in Pampanga Clark Freeport Zone adjacent to Angeles City, just 25 minutes from Subic and 45 minutes from Manila.

Wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone, Loire, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Alsace, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, South Africa, Chile and Argentina etc. are well represented in this Clark Wine Shop.

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