An upswing in Malbec sales has spurred more plantings of Malbec here in California and has caused the varietal prices to increase dramatically.

Travel is something I have loved all my life. The thrill of discovering a new place charges my batteries and satisfies my soul. To spend enough time to learn about the culture, the people and the customs of a newly-found country are one of the great pleasures in life.

Three years ago, I went to Argentina for the first time and fell in love with the country and the people. The late night dining and after-hours nightlife fit right into my preferred schedule. In the markets, I found row after row of wine from wineries of which I had never heard. There were exotic varietals like Torrontés, Bonarda and Malbec. The wines were inexpensive, and we spent a lot of time tasting our way into the culture.

We went to Mendoza, visited several wineries and talked with winemakers. We found people who were excited as well as dedicated. With the snow-capped Andes Mountains as a backdrop, the vineyards were stunning. There was a good mix of old-time, rustic wineries and gleaming, new, modern facilities. Clearly, Argentine winemaking was reinventing itself, and Malbec was the variety leading the charge.

There is no doubt that Malbec is succeeding. Sales in the United States are soaring. Exports of Malbec to the United States in 2005 saw 631,800 cases, an increase of 32.3 percent over 2004. Exports of Malbec in 2006 saw 903,800 cases, an even bigger increase of 44 percent over 2005. This upswing in Malbec sales has spurred more plantings of Malbec here in California and has caused the varietal prices to increase dramatically.

Patricia Ortiz, Andres Rosberg, Fernando Buscema and Carlos Tizio

We wanted to speak to Argentine winemakers and learn what they were doing with Malbec to make it so successful. On a recent trip to Buenos Aires we had the opportunity and the occasion to speak with some of Argentina's finest Malbec experts.

Patricia Ortiz was a medical doctor. She purchased vineyards in 2002 and then the Kendall-Jackson winemaking facility in 2004. She currently serves as president and CEO of Bodega Tapiz and Zolo wines.

 Andres Rosberg is happily planting his first vineyard. He has been a sommelier for 10 years. He is currently the head of the Argentine Sommelier Association and secretary of the Pan-American Sommelier Association.

Fernando Buscema started working in his family's winery. He studied enology at university, scoring top in his class. For the past three years he has been in charge of research and development for Catena Zapata.

Carlos Tizio has been general manager at Clos de Los Siete since 2004. He earned a master's degree at UC Davis and worked as a researcher for 12 years. He also served another 12 years as technical director for Norton Winery.

What are your picking parameters for Malbec?

Carlos: Ripe grapes, ripe tannins, polyphenols and concentration. We analyze the grapes one or two times a week when we are close (Brix, TA, pH, malic and tartaric acid); but the final decision is made by tasting. We run an index on total polyphenols, anthocyanins and the relationship between anthocyanins and tannin.

Fernando: In addition to the tests Carlos mentions, Brix is important for us, and pH. With Malbec it depends on the region. If you are in a warmer region, you will probably reach a higher Brix than in a cooler region. We feel we have the correct ripeness somewhere between 25° and 30°Brix. It depends on the vineyard. Then tasting is really important for us. If you can imagine the wine you are going to produce when tasting in the vineyard, you will likely make a really good wine.

If you taste green grapes, you will get a green wine; but you also don't want an over-ripe, over-alcoholic wine. We generally pick in the 3.7 to 3.9 pH range. Some years, in cooler regions, you can pick a little lower. That generally gives us grapes at 4.5 to 5.7 g/l tartaric acidity.

Patricia: We look at the same things and the sugar level, and we try to get our acidity between 5.0 and 6.5 g/l.

Carlos: We also look at malic acid. Normally Malbec is a high malic acid variety. At Clos de los Siete we do not make any correction with tartaric acid.

Patricia: Sure, because you get all of your grapes from there. When we get our grapes from Valle de Uco, we don't need to correct acidity; but when we go to Mendoza Valley, then we may correct acidity. The acidity tends to be higher in grapes from vineyards at higher elevations. When you go lower and get warmer climates, you need to adjust the acidity.

Andres: One thing that should be added is that almost every single wine in Argentina is made from hand-picked grapes. We hand-pick everything.

What do you do once the grapes come to the winery?

Fernando: We try to pick the grapes early in the morning and get them to the winery as fast as we can. We check Brix, pH and acid. We look to see if there are raisins to determine how carefully we need to sort the batch. Then we sort the clusters, getting rid of raisins and leaves. Then we de-stem--but not crush--and we sort again looking for raisins and unripe berries. Depending on the lot, we pump or dump the grapes to the fermenters.

We do two or three different harvests in the same block. Usually we won't crush the grapes from the first harvest because we want to avoid extracting any green flavors; but in the second and mostly the third harvest, we crush because we want more extraction. From there we go into the tank having added SO₂. Then we bleed the tank if we have planned on doing that. After that, we pump over to mix all the grapes with the SO₂. Then we analyze Brix, pH and total acidity again. That's when we adjust acid if we need to. We shoot for a pH of 3.7 to 3.75.

We mainly use delestage and punch downs during the first half of the fermentation. During the second half, we need to be very careful so we don't extract things we don't want in this high-alcohol medium. So we switch to short pump-overs and less delestage. We use extended maceration depending on the year and the lot. It can last from five days up to 20.

Patricia: We make the first selection in the vineyard the day before harvest. We'll remove anything we don't want picked before the pickers come in. We pick into small baskets and put the grapes in 400 Kilo bins. They come to the winery where we check the visual quality.

The grapes are sorted and then go into a hopper to remove the stems. Then we have a second hand-sorting on a vibrating table. We have two separate lines: the classic line and the reserve line. Our reserve line gets a cold soak maceration for three to five days; and after that, we make our acid additions if needed. We ferment at 28°C for seven to eight days followed by a 12- to 15-day maceration.

Carlos: We harvest vineyards that are low in production; four to six tons per hectare. One guy actually picks while another carries small 12 Kg boxes to the tractor. All of our vineyards at Clos de los Siete are contiguous to the four wineries. We use a shaking sorting table to select through the clusters and remove all the raisins, little berries, leaf material, etc. Then we have a second selection, after de-stemming to remove all of the green berries and stems. We go into a 500 Kg rolling bucket. We add dry ice, and we roll the buckets to the tanks and dump into the tanks. Our entire winery is gravity operated. We don't use any pumps.

We add SO₂, cold soak five to six days and then ferment. We use native yeast for all of our fermentations. Then depending on our concentration, we may or may not bleed off some wine. These decisions are based on the concentration we are getting from the fruit. We do not apply the same recipe to all of the grapes. We ferment at 28°C for about seven to eight days. Then depending on what we want, depending on the bleeding, pigeage (punch-downs) the pumping over or the delestage, we determine the time of maceration, usually 30 to 40 days.

Do any of you use native yeast for your
fermentations?

Patricia: No, all of our fermentations use selected yeast.

Fernando: We use selected yeasts. We begin fermentation at about 24°C with native yeast. Then we go up to 28°C and inoculate with selected yeast.

Andres: We are definitely moving towards more experimentation with native yeasts. Some are doing full fermentations. Some are doing partial fermentations. Five or 10 years ago, no one was doing anything with native yeast.

Carlos: In the beginning, it was all native yeast. Native yeast gives a nice complexity, but you have to take care of the winery. You have to work very clean to avoid any contamination. At the end you still don't know what kind of yeast completed the fermentation.

Do you have problems with stuck fermentations?

Fernando: That's one of the reasons we add selected yeast. The idea is to finish the fermentation and use up all of the sugars. We don't want any sugars, because we need to go through malolactic fermentation. The bacteria will eat malic acid first, but then they'll go after the sugar. That's something we don't want because residual sugar can also lead to Brettanomyces developing in the wine.

Patricia: We use commercial yeast, so we don't have problems with stuck fermentations. We are very careful about controlling our fermentation temperatures and adding nutrients, so it hasn't been a problem.

Carlos: We use native yeast exclusively, but we've had no problems. We check the density and follow the wine four times a day. That allows us to see when the yeast needs some nutrients.

Fernando: We don't add nutrients unless the fermentation is asking for them. If we see the fermentation is sluggish or if we have reductive characteristics, then we will add a little bit of nutrients at a time.

What do you do after
fermentation?

Carlos: We rack the free-run wine to barrels. Because we use a basket press, we get fantastic results in our press wines. We keep the wines separate and then, when Michel Rolland tastes the wines, he decides which wines will go to the blend. We have gentle presses, which give us very good quality press juice, but it still depends on the wine.

Patricia: We have a hydraulic press and a basket press. We get nice press juice. We don't mix them at the beginning. When they make the blends, they decide whether they will use it or not, depending on the wine. In the classic line, we may use more press wine than in the reserve line.

Fernando: If we have a good year with concentrated grapes, then we don't need to add the press. But sometimes we feel that the press is an outstanding wine, and it will help the blend. There is no rule. We keep them separated. We follow the evolution; and if the press wine is good, then we will use it.

Andres: It depends on the winery. There are people that keep press and free-run separately, and there are others that blend them together. Before, people were reluctant to use press juice; now more and more press juice is being used in the top blends or the reserve blends.

What kind of barrels are you using and what
percentage is new?

Patricia: We change 30 percent of the oak every year. We use the oak three or four times, depending on the oak. We buy 85 percent French oak and 15 percent American oak from different barrel producers. Our classic line is in oak eight to 10 months, and the reserve line gets 10 to 12 months. Our Black Tears is in new oak for one year, and then 50 percent is racked to new barrels again.

Carlos: Our Malbec wines (Val de Flores, Lindaflor, Cuvelier Los Andes Gran Malbec, Monteviejo, Flechas de Los Andes Gran Corte and DiamAndes) use 100 percent new French oak barrels for 14 to 16 months.

Fernando: For the Catena Alta we use 70 percent French oak and 30 percent American. Forty percent of that is new oak. We usually age our Malbec for 15 to 17 months in oak. For Malbec Argentino we use 90 to 95 percent French with 200 percent new oak. That means we give it 12 months in new oak and then rack to new oak for another 12 months.

Andres: Most producers are using Bordelais barrels of 225 liters. Very few are using oak casks of larger capacity. A low, low percentage are using old oak casks in the style of old Rioja, and a few producers are using new oak casks.

Do you use micro-oxygenation?

Carlos: Depending on the wine. Normally we do not use that here. It can depend on the vineyard or the vintage. If you have a little greenness or it's not very ripe, you can use micro-ox to get more polymerization, but it depends on the year and the vineyard. Normally, we don't need it for our Malbec because we have good vineyards and get ripe, mature fruit.

Patricia: We use Innerstave for fermentation in the classic line, and we've been using micro-oxygenation in our classic line because those wines go to the market very quickly. With the reserve line, the Malbec goes into the barrels by itself.

Fernando: We find that Malbec is a huge fan of oxygen, and it needs a lot of oxygen during the fermentation and the maturation process. If we age in barrels, we don't need micro-oxygenation because we are going to have the time to provide the oxygen that Malbec needs. If we are making Alamos, our entry-level wine, we are going to make the wine this year and sell it the next year; then we need to provide the oxygen it needs. Malbec has a lot of phenolics and anthocyanins and tannins. Those molecules need oxygen to react. If there's not enough oxygen, we will lose color, have harsher tannins and find reductive character in the bottles--so in the Alamos line we need micro-oxygenation.

Andres: Micro-oxygenation and Innerstave fermentation are quite normal here in Argentina. It depends on who is the producer. Some prefer Innerstave while others prefer oak barrels. From a sommelier's point of view, what we find is that Innerstave and micro-oxygenation have been useful in making the wines better for the entry-level consumer. Not everyone can afford to pay $40 to $50 a bottle. So people who are paying $10 a bottle are getting a much rounder, fruitier, cleaner, more expressive kind of wine. So it's good.

When it comes to more demanding customers who are looking for wines that are more complex and more full-bodied with fuller structure and more aging potential, then we steer them to the wines made in the more traditional way with oak barrels. Most people don't know the difference between Innerstave/micro-ox wine versus barrel aged wine; but the people ready to pay for high-end wines tend to know the difference. They aren't satisfied with the simpler wines.

Carlos: Innerstave/micro-oxygenated wine is for a certain segment of the market. Those are wines that sell for $5 to $9. At those prices, producers cannot afford barrels.

Patricia: People paying that money aren't so interested in complexity. They are looking for a simple wine, a round wine.

What about Brettanomyces, is that a problem?

Fernando: We have a name for Brett. We call it the third fermentation. If you can manage something that gives you more complexity, then it is something else we can deliver to the consumer. For us, it is important because we like to have some Brettanomyces component in some of our wines. Our winemaker, Alejandro Vigil, developed a system to manage Brettanomyces. He measured the levels of Brettanomyces in the wine along with the components like ethyl-phenol and ethyl-guaiacol that Brettanomyces produces. Then he worked with this relationship between alcohol, pH and SO₂. With these three parameters, you can control Brettanomyces. We have to isolate the barrels with Brett because the cross-contamination possibilities are huge.

Now we have special lots with Brettanomyces. They are isolated and controlled with SO₂, pH and alcohol, and we can control them all the way into the bottle without filtration. The Brett will not cause damage if the alcohol is 14 to 15 percent and there is no sugar. We try to keep the free SO₂ around 30 ppm with pH around 3.72.

Carlos: We don't have Brettanomyces. We have a very clean, new winery, and we're hygienic in our practices; but, personally, I like wines with some hint of Brettanomyces character. It is not a sin. If you have a lot, okay; but they have fantastic Malbec at Catena Zapata with a hint of that character that I like personally. We are very careful not to get it because contamination can be huge. It can dominate in a winery, but I like the hint.

Andres: It's not a problem in general. Some wineries have a little for added complexity, and it is changing the way we think of it.

What is the ageability factor for Malbec?

Patricia: It depends on many factors. Getting ripe tannins helps a lot. In our classic line, we expect them to last for five years. We know that we will sell them in the first year and that people will drink them up. These are the kinds of wine you drink the day you buy them. In the reserve line, we think they will keep for a minimum of 10 years. We don't have a history in the winery, but the wines are made to age.

One problem is that our market doesn't want old wines. Customers insist we change vintage every year. I say, "Why should I sell 2007 if I still have 2006, and I have some 2005 that is still better?" But they insist that each new year needs new wine. We drink older vintages, but people here won't buy it.

Fernando: I'm 26, so I have not tried too much old wine. I think the people who have been tasting wines from all over the world every single day say that Malbec can last. We have some 1995 Malbecs that are great. We know that some Malbecs in the past have aged well. We think we are making better wines today than we were 15 years ago, so we assume these wines will last even longer.

Andres: I think he makes a good point. Some of the wines we are making now will last a lot longer than some of the previous wines we've had. I've come across a number of Malbecs that have been aged quite a few years. The most famous is the 1977 Star Malbec from a company called Weinert that has lasted in very good condition. I have tasted certain 1982s and 1985s that are still alive.

It is still too early. We need for more time to go by before we can say what the aging potential of Malbec is. I think we are dealing with a grape variety that has aging potential that justifies aging in your cellar for five to 10 to 15 years; but the charm of Malbec is that it can also be drunk within one or two years.

Carlos: I believe they have the potential to age well for 20 to 30 years. I have had 1974 and 1982 Malbecs that were basically made with 8-day fermentations and a racking. Then they were put in large oak casks. They are fantastic wines. If those wines can age, our current wines will do better.

What role do consultants play in the winery?

Fernando: The most important thing is that they make you think. They give us a different opinion about our wine, but it is a technical opinion. It makes us rethink all of the steps we made to arrive at that wine. It's like going back to school. They are not giving us recipes. They are not changing our style, but we are thinking more about what we are doing.

We can decide that we have made the right choices and we will continue doing it our way, but the consultant causes you to think about that. Sometimes they give us ideas that cause us to change what we do. These people are making wine all over the world, every single day, so they have all sorts of experience and ideas. The most important thing is to keep your identity. You cannot change your style depending on who your consultant is.

Patricia: I agree. We use consultants because it's an outside opinion about your wine. He tastes the wine and lets us know if we are on the right path in trying to achieve our winery style.

Carlos: Thirty years ago, we in Argentina were producing wine for ourselves. We never went out. We had problems here and had to look abroad. Argentina's wine quality has improved a lot, thanks to Michel Rolland consulting for more than 20 years in many wineries. Paul Hobbs has done a lot, too. These consultants taught us a lot about the learning process of making wine. They knew we needed ripe grapes from good vineyards with low crop size. They gave us ideas of what to do with our vineyards and our winemaking.

Andres: Most of the people willing to pay the prices commanded by the top wines know about the wine consultants. There has been a huge change. If you came here 15 years ago, there were maybe five wineries and 25 to 30 wines. You didn't need to know too much about the wines to know which you preferred.

In the last 10 years we've seen a tremendous growth in the quality of the wines made by those original producers, and we've seen a marked increase in new wineries making high-end, high-quality wines. As a result, the amount of wines available has multiplied many, many times over. Today there are hundreds of wineries and thousands of labels to choose from, so a famous consultant or a good winery reputation can make buyers feel safer when they buy.

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Malbec is the primary variety associated with Argentina for a good reason. They work with Malbec that is pre-phylloxera genetic material planted to its own rootstock. The quality of this material is unique. It no longer exists, even in France. Malbec is a genetic treasure that Argentines happened to plant in the perfect place. Malbec is delicate at bloom time. It hates dry heat or wind during set. It doesn't like cold weather or a lot of rain. But grown in the well-drained soils of the Andes, Malbec has done very well, and at the higher elevation sites, it consistently gets ripe and seems to maintain acidity.

Argentina has a long, proud history of winemaking, but current, modern winemaking techniques have only been practiced for 20 years. In many ways, winemaking there is in its infancy. Winemakers are working hard to learn the modern ins and outs of their craft. They will soon have a better handle on how to grow perfectly ripened grapes and how best to use oak, micro-ox and other winemaking techniques. It is reasonable to assume that Malbec from Argentina is going to improve as time goes on.

Talking about his experiences working with Malbec in Argentina, Paul Hobbs once commented that he had learned "that culture is part of terroir." With that in mind, I set up this roundtable luncheon/interview at one of my favorite restaurants in Buenos Aires: Parrilla Don Julio. We sat at the table and ate our way through lush salads, spicy chorizos and enormous steaks. We had impassioned discussions and finished off most of 11 bottles of wine before the afternoon ended.

This passionate attitude about dining, discussion and camaraderie is an Argentine thing. It permeates every aspect of their daily lives. Along with their strong sense of family and country, it helps define who they are. Who is to say? I like to think that this attitude and way of life contribute a lot to the success of Argentine Malbec. wbm