You won’t see Argentina headlining wine auctions yet, but the world’s fifth-largest producer is beginning to make collectible wines. At this stage, buyers are more likely to have romantic reasons for embracing Argentina, though producers hope that wine investors may soon follow them into the market.
“Most of our clients that spend over $80 a bottle have either visited Argentina and fallen in love with the country or are married to an Argentine,” says Christian Rothhardt, founder of specialist Argentine wine merchant Ruta 40 in London.
Tapping into the tourist trade is an important factor in Argentina itself. The Vines of Mendoza tasting room in the historic city encourages visitors to taste wines from different producers, after which they can ship bottles home and subsequently send orders from the United States.
“The average price of our wines sold [here] is $45,” says head sommelier Mariana Onofri. “Once they have been here and experienced the great wines, they are confident spending more on Argentine wine in the future.”
That said, many of Argentina’s top wines are bought by affluent locals and wine-loving Brazilians on vacation. Visitors hunting out bargains are sometimes disillusioned to discover that the prices charged at the cellar door are higher than at home. Take, for example, one of Robert Parker’s top five producers in Argentina, Alta Vista. The 2007 vintage of its leading wine, Alto, sells at 600 pesos ($92) yet is listed on Wine-Searcher at an average price of $74 excl. tax. It’s not about ripping off tourists, either, as the same higher prices – and more – are charged in local wine stores and restaurants.
So, why are Argentine wines sold more cheaply 5,000 miles away than they are in the place of production? The anomaly arises because of the parlous state of the Argentine peso. At the time of publication, the official rate was 6.5 pesos to the U.S. dollar, while the black market rate was 10.3. It’s the official rate that’s used in exports.
Taking average worldwide prices as a barometer, here are the top 10 on Wine-Searcher’s list of Argentina’s Most Expensive Wines*. To be included, a wine must have been produced over five consecutive vintages and have a minimum of 20 different offers in our search engine.
© Viña Cobos | Paul Hobbs (R) in the vineyard with Vina Cobos’s co-founders Luis Barraud and Andrea Marchiori
No. 1. Heading up the chart at $190 is Viña Cobos’s Nico Cabernet Sauvignon, now known as Volturno. It’s an odd man out in a country where malbec rules but cabernet sauvignon is the pet grape of American winemaker Paul Hobbs, who uses it as the dominant variety in his highest-level wine. Up to 37 percent malbec is blended in for good measure.
“I think Argentina is the third-greatest region for cabernet in the world [after Bordeaux and Napa],” says Hobbs, who first came to Argentina to act as a consultant at Catena Zapata in 1989. He set up his own winery, Cobos, in 1997. “Hardly anybody knows about Argentina because it hasn’t paid much attention to cab itself, but now people are beginning to,” reports Hobbs.
Why is this wine able to net such a high price? “With this vineyard you are drinking a part of history, but history alone does not do the job,” says the winemaker. “It is a world-class standard and you can age this for 50 years.” It probably helps that Hobbs has his own California-based wine importation business and has worked for some of the industry’s biggest names in wine. Oh, and this wine fairly consistently gets 98 Parker points.
However, there’s potential for enormous confusion over its name. First released in 2005, early listings of the wine will show it as “Nico” – named after co-founder Andrea Marchiori’s father Don Nico, who was always “the first one out on the vineyard for the first pick.” Unfortunately for Hobbs, Laura Catena had launched her wine “Nico by Luca” three months earlier. After a couple of confusing years, Hobbs switched to using Don Nico’s middle name, Volturno.
No. 2. Viña Cobos “Cobos” Malbec. Hobbs strikes again, this time with the first wine he made at Viña Cobos in 1999. Like Nico/Volturno, the wine spends 18 months in new oak and the grapes come from Hobbs’s 80-year-old vineyard in the Mendoza sub-region of Lujan de Cuyo.