Once upon a time, I went to Argentina looking for the good wine. Frankly I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about when it came to Malbec. Most of the ones I had tasted here in the US were mediocre. Only a select few rose to the level of excellent, and none to the level of amazing. Yet there was a long stream of proclamations from various people (you know, the ones whose opinions “count” when it comes to such things) that Argentinean Malbec was the next greatest thing.

Scratching my head, I traipsed off to Argentina looking for the promised land. Or promised bottle, as the case may be.

And I found it. We had a lot of great Malbec while we were there, and really got a chance to appreciate the Argentinean skill at high altitude viticulture.

There was one wine region that we didn’t visit however, and we’ve been kicking ourselves ever since, as we’ve had several stunning wines from the province of Salta.

Tucked up in the northeast corner of Argentina, Salta is a wine region quite unlike any other. Its vineyards may very well be the highest altitude vineyards in the world, and its high-desert climate offers some of the greatest diurnal shifts (daytime-nighttime temperature changes) in the western hemisphere. Add to that a spectacular red rock, Wild West landscape, and you’ve got one of the most unique wine countries in the world.

And we missed it. A painful fact made all the more evident every time I try a new wine from Salta.

This wine, however, is not new to me. Ever since I tried the 2005 vintage, I’ve been a fan of Bodega Colome.

The land that is now known as Bodegas Colomé has been farmed since long before anyone kept written records. There were certainly well established farming communities of natives when the tendrils of the Incan empire reached down into the valley in the 15th century. When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, the area was so well populated and organized it took them 90 years to gain control of the valley. In the course of their conquest at some point vine grapes were first planted, and the area has had some level of grape cultivation ever since.

Bodegas Colomé now farms some of the oldest vines in Argentina. Significantly younger than 16th century, but 150-year-old pre-phylloxera, own-rooted Malbec and Cabernet vines are nothing to sneeze at. The estate’s 250 acres of vines from old French cuttings also hold the claim of being some of the highest altitude vineyards in the world, with the highest being more than 8500 feet above sea level. As if ancient vines and near alpine conditions weren’t enough to distinguish their grapes, Bodegas Colomé also farms their vineyards biodynamically. The natural yields from these vineyards rarely top 1.6 tons per acre, and the oldest vines provide a miniscule .6 tons per acre of fruit.

The winery was founded in 1831, most likely by the governor of Salta province at the time. His daughter was responsible for the planting of the vines imported from Bordeaux, which have been farmed continuously by her descendants ever since, making the winery the oldest continuously operated producer in all of Argentina. In 2001 the winery was purchased by Donald Hess and his Hess Group company, a Swiss corporation that owns the Hess Collection winery and art museum in Napa.

This wine is made from 85% Malbec, 8% Tannat, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Syrah, and 2% Petite Verdot all grown at altitudes between 5500 and 8500 feet above sea level. A portion of the Malbec that goes into this blend comes from the circa 1854 vines on the estate. The grapes were hand harvested in very small groups (25 pound boxes) and sorted by hand before destemming and crushing. Because of the high altitude, fermentation takes longer to begin with, but in addition to a sloooooow fermentation, the grapes were given a 25 to 30-day cold extended maceration period before fermentation was allowed to commence. 50% of the wine was then transferred to French oak barrels where it underwent a secondary fermentation, with the other 50% undergoing the same fermentation in tank. These two lots were then blended together and aged in French oak (30% new) for 15 months before bottling.

Having tasted this wine every vintage for several years, I can say that it is becoming a little more serious. Cabernet has been dialed back and replaced with Tannat, which is giving the wine a more tannic edge. While I don’t love this 2008 as much as I have some other vintages in the past, this wine remains one of the most consistent values from the region.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.

Tasting Notes:
Dark purple in the glass, this wine smells of rich cassis aromas with a hint of burnt match. In the mouth, leathery tannins wrap around a core of cassis, cocoa powder, and a deep graphite and wet dirt flavor that rumbles around in the basement of the palate for a while. Cassis and the texture of the tannins linger on the finish. A young wine, that will likely improve for a couple years in the bottle. 14.9% Alcohol.

Food Pairing:
If there’s one thing to eat with the rich red wines of Argentina, it’s beef. How about charred rib-eye shish-kabobs with red onion, bell peppers, and mushrooms?

Overall Score: between 8.5 and 9.

How Much?: $24

This wine is available for purchase on the internet.

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I’m one of the last people you’ll see jumping on the Mondovino bandwagon to bemoan the homogeneity of the world’s wines thanks to the evils of globalization. But nonetheless a recent announcement from New Zealand, definitely has me a little queasy.

You can read the story yourself, but here’s the gist of it: the New Zealand government is spending $12 million dollars to improve and bolster the market performance of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Not a bad idea on its face, right? Nice to see a government backing its wine industry and helping it continue to succeed in the marketplace.

But here’s how they’re going to do it according to project leader Roger Harker: “They want to create a pipeline of New Zealand-centric flavour styles that will generate excitement in the marketplace and further stimulate demand.” And according to the New Zealand Herald: “The signature herbaceous, grassy style of New Zealand sauvignon blanc could be played with “at the edges” to create a diversity of tastes at the upper end of the market.”

Now, to be honest, I’m not exactly sure what either of those quotes mean, but I really don’t like the notion of “coming up with new styles of Sauvignon Blanc.” As if the grape just needed a little more tweaking to broaden its range.

Experimenting with wine is all well and good when it involves trying to plant grapes in new places, growing the grapes in different configurations, trying out different clones of the grape in different situations, trying out a new kind of barrel, or different temperatures for fermentation. And indeed the article suggests that some of these will be the kinds of things that $12 million gets spent on. Fine.

But the idea of engineering the flavor of Sauvignon Blanc to try to appeal to specific niche markets in the world that don’t like the style that New Zealand seems to most easily produce sounds a bit like a cross between New Coke and the stuff that passes for takeout Chinese food in the Midwest: completely concocted in the vain attempt to appeal to some sense of what you think your customers’ palates really want.

Now, I’m willing to accept the possibility that this kind of flavor engineering is merely the interpretation of the journalist who wrote this article (lord knows it wouldn’t be the first time a reporter inserted implications that didn’t belong), but if it is true, I take it as a very bad sign for the New Zealand wine industry. The country has made gigantic strides with wine consumers by producing excellent wines that are also excellent values, and as a result the country has earned some trust based on its consistency. The last thing it should do is throw that away by trying to artificially broaden the range of what New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc tastes like.

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You can file this story under Stuff I Want For Christmas. According to the BBC, a group of divers off the coast of Finland recently discovered a shipwreck they believe dates back to the late 18th Century. In the remains of the ship they found several intact glass bottles of wine, their contents still well preserved.

So what did they do? What any self-respecting wine lover would do.They drank some.

Believed to be Veuve Clicquot Champagne dating from between 1782 and 1788, the wine “had a very sweet taste, you could taste oak and it had a very strong tobacco smell. And there were very small bubbles” according to diver Christian Ekstrom.

While that isn’t much of a tasting note, it still sends shivers of delight down my spine. How cool would it be to taste such a piece of history? A champagne that is almost as old as America itself would certainly be one of the most amazing things you would ever have the opportunity to consume.

Before this find, the oldest vintage of Champagne that had been tasted in modern times was the 1825 vintage of Perrier-Jouet opened for wine experts and the press last year.

It’s not clear exactly how the determination was made that these were Veuve Cliquot, or what will happen to the 29 remaining bottles which presumably fall under the jurisdiction of the Finnish government.

The same BBC article suggested that unnamed “wine experts” suggested that the bottles could sell for about $69,000 each at auction.

Given the chance, I’d much rather have a sip of one of these bottles than an old claret that might have belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Anyone want to bet whether Bill Koch will get his hands on some?

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