2009 ~ No. 6
Altos las Hormigas
The first malbec I ever tasted – or
at least remember tasting – was Altos
las Hormigas. The wine was juicy, nicely balanced between
fruity and earthy, and the bargain price of $8 a bottle.
So
when I was at a wine event a few weeks ago, it was a delightful
surprise to see the Altos las Hormigas Reserva in the lineup.
I began chatting with Brian McGonigle, General Manager for
Altos las Hormigas USA, who filled me in on the story, which
can be summed up thusly: Italians! Making wine in Argentina!
From a grape no one has heard of! Achieve phenomenal success!
Indeed, when they set out in 1995 to explore Argentina’s
winemaking possibilities, Tuscan winemaker Alberto Antonini
and entrepreneur Antonio Morescalchi were taking a great leap
of faith.
At the time, Argentina’s wine was largely mass-produced,
average to poor quality, and intended for the domestic market.
Today, Antonini and Morescalchi seem visionaries: In a world
of declining wine consumption, Argentina’s wine exports
are up 34% in volume, and over 40% in value.
Altos
las Hormigas makes two wines. The “entry level”
is called, simply, Altos las Hormigas. It is made with malbec
grapes from their own vineyard as well as fruit sourced from
several vineyards in Mendoza. The vines are generally younger,
so the wine is delightfully fruity and juicy with just a hint
of the rugged Mendoza terroir.
Their other wine is gets the Reserva label, as it comes from
80 year old vineyards and sees extra time in bottle before
being released. As a result, the wine offers a bit more depth
and earthy character, though it maintains the savory fruit
notes of the younger cuvee.
Wine
Talk: A Conversation with Antonio Morescalchi
My
encounter with the Reserva made me want more details about
the winery and its history, so Brian was kind enough to put
me in touch via email with Antonio Morescalchi (pictured),
a founder of Altos las Hormigas. Highlights from our conversation:
FWC: What attracted you about Argentina?
What made you think it would be a good place to grow wine?
AM: Mendoza [the biggest wine region in
Argentina] was an opportunity waiting to be discovered and
we were lucky enough to land there. We spent the whole month
of August 1995 visiting wineries and vineyards, three weeks
in Mendoza and one in Chile. Mendoza struck us like love at
first sight. All I can say is that Mendoza possesses a profound
and authentic quality, and we could sense it in the few wines
that back then were vinified in a clean environment, without
indecent yields. Those wines stunned us with their flavor
profile.
At
the same time we realized that malbec had a good commercial
appeal: great color, velvety mouthfeel, striking fruit character.
All Mendoza wineries were betting on cabs [cabernet sauvignon],
merlot and chard [chardonnay], at that time, but we immediately
fell in love with malbec, and we were not scared by the fact
that the grape was unheard of, [as] that’s an everyday
challenge with Italian grapes.
FWC: Along those lines, what are the similarities
or differences between malbec and sangiovese, the great grape
of Tuscany – as well as between Tuscany and Mendoza?
How did you adapt to the variables?
AM: When you start in a new territory, you
have to be humble, and be aware that you have to learn more
than you can teach, no matter how strong…your background.
Experience is always important - it builds your confidence
and you know…what to look for. Still you need to be
very patient, and accept the trial and error process.
Malbec and sangiovese have really very little in common,
if you compare Mendoza malbec and Chianti Classico. Freshness
and acidity, so easy to get in Chianti Classico, are really
a headache in Mendoza. Suppleness and color, not exactly classical
features [of] Tuscan sangiovese, are available by default
in Mendoza malbec.
The most important luggage we carried along was an idea
of balance and through the years, working on both sides of
the Atlantic, we have been able to carry experiences and impressions
back and forth. This is possibly our most important contribution
to the development of Mendoza.
FWC: As the enterprise grew, several winemakers
and other strong wine personalities joined the team. How do
you manage their different styles and opinions?
AM: There are truly very different styles
and ideas in our group, and this has been a crucial asset
for us. We have among us the most new world-y Italian wine
maker, one true terroir [terrorist], and a shameless
lover of concentration and complexity. The discussion that
raises among those characters can go on forever, but we share
the utmost mutual respect, and we believe that this discussion
can take us to the next level, so we accept differences, and
we patiently work them out, praising the outcome as a most
precious asset of ours.
FWC: Obviously, now, the wine is a huge
success. Did that take you by surprise since, particularly
when you started out, most consumers weren’t familiar
with the grape or region?
AM: Malbec is at present in fashion in the
American market, [so] it remains to be seen what will happen
when the wave expires. We have been true believers of malbec
merits all the way through, and we were waiting for the market
to discover it.
[In addition,] a good movement of wineries has formed in
Argentina to reach out to the consumer, and this movement
has gathered together the critical mass needed make the breakthrough
[which is] sustained by favorable costs and the appealing
flavor profile of Mendoza malbec.
FWC: How would you characterize the wine’s
style and what techniques do you use to achieve it?
AM: There is a vineyard tradition of great
value in Mendoza but not a traditional old winemaking style
worth preserving. The truly exciting part is that the debate
for what Mendoza malbec stands for is wide open, and we are
making our bid for it.
We believe that the characteristics to be upheld are its
incredible flavor profile - a mixture of fruits and spices,
with an earthy undernote - and its velvety mouthfeel. This
is easy to achieve, if you have prime sites and you watch
your phenolic ripeness.
Where our efforts concentrate is in getting good acidity,
adequate backbone and more complexity. For acidity, it’s
a mixture of higher sites, and earlier harvest, always making
sure to have no green characters, and long enough hanging
time, for fine tannins. For complexity, we prefer to blend
multiple sites, bringing different notes and spices to the
final product.
FWC: What’s the best way to enjoy
a bottle?
AM: The best way is sharing it with people
you are happy to see, and possibly with prime beef, grilled
in the simplest style. Malbec comes from Argentina because
down there the most common entertainment is a big gathering
of family and friends, an Asado, where the host slowly
grills a gargantuan amount of grass fed beef, cut in many
different styles, commenting on the barbeque technique and
sharing a good moment.
About
Argentina
You
may be surprised to learn that Argentina has more hectares
under vine than the US, Australia and New Zealand combined.
Or that it is the fifth largest wine-producing nation.
Given those statistics, it probably isn’t
a surprise that their per capita level of wine consumption
is an amazing 42 liters – and that’s down from
a peak of 92 liters in 1970!
Those two quantities represent the sea change that has
happened in Argentine winemaking over the past twenty or
so years, although the country’s wine heritage dates
to the 1500s.
Much of that history isn’t worth discussing: wine
was made from the criolla grape (a lesser varietal) without
much care taken in the winemaking process, creating an obvious
emphasis on quantity over quality.
That started to change in 1895, when English entrepreneur
Edmund Norton established a winery in Mendoza and became
one of the first to import European varietals to the area.
(His Bodegas Norton is still a well-regarded estate.) An
influx of immigrants in the early years of the 20th century
revved up an already thriving industry.
Misfortune, however, settled in for a visit in the 1930s.
For the next several decades, economic and political crises
helped deflate investment in the wine industry. Most producers
abandoned whatever goals they had to produce quality wine
for export, shifting their focus back to quantity, quantity
and quantity.
The
pendulum swung back in the 1980s, when international investors
saw Argentina’s potential. Everyone from small enterprises
like Altos las Hormigas to major companies like Kendall-Jackson
and Moet & Chandon poured money into the country’s
vineyards – literally. This investment totaled an
estimated $1.5 billion during the 1990s alone.
From there on out, it was quality, quality and quality.
Winemakers increased their production not only of the noble
varietals introduced by Norton (grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon
and Chardonnay) but also of what might be considered the
region’s native grapes, including malbec and bonarda.
As a result, Argentine wines are perched nicely at the
intersection of quality and value. It’s a good place
to be these days.
More on Malbec
One of only five grapes allowed in Bordeaux wines, malbec
is largely an afterthought in France these days. Instead,
the grape is synonymous with Argentina - so much so that
most people probably don't make the, uh, French connection.
A
key reason for this is climate: the cool, wet environment
of Bordeaux makes malbec a challenging grape to grow and
most winemakers these days don't want the headache. The
grape, however, thrives in the hot, dry, high-altitude vineyards
of Argentina.
Et voila, a match made in heaven and an excellent
wine in the bottle.
