Mendoza is by far the largest wine region in Argentina. Located on a high-altitude plateau at the edge of the Andes Mountains, the province is responsible for roughly 70 percent of the country's annual wine production. The French Grape variety Malbec has its New World home in the vineyards of Mendoza, producing red wines of great concentration and intensity.
The province Lies on the western edge of Argentina, across the Andes Mountains from Chile.
While the province is large (it covers a similar area to the state of New York), its viticultural land is clustered mainly in the northern Part, just South of Mendoza City. Here, the regions of Lujan de Cuyo, Maipu and the Uco Valley are home to some of the biggest names in Argentinian wine.
Mendoza's winemaking history is nearly as Old as the colonial history of Argentina itself. The first vines were planted by priests of the Catholic Church's Jesuit order in the mid-16th Century, borrowing agricultural techniques from the Incas and Huarpes, who had occupied the land before them.
Malbec was introduced around this time by a French agronomist, Miguel Aimé Pouget.
In the 1800s, Spanish and Italian immigrants flooded into Mendoza to escape the ravages of the Phylloxera louse that was devastating vineyards in Europe at the time. A boom in wine production came in 1885, when a railway line was completed between Mendoza and the country's capital city, Buenos Aires, providing a cheaper, easier way of sending wines out of the region. For most of the 20th Century, the Argentinean wine industry focused almost entirely on the domestic market, and it is only in the past 25 years that a push toward quality has led to the wines of Mendoza gracing restaurant lists the world over.
It is said to be of Slovenian origin, where it is cultivated under the name of Prosekar, also known for a long time in Italy under the name of Glera. It should not be confused with prosecco lungo - although there is a family link - and prosecco nostrano, which is none other than Tuscany's malvasia. Note that Vitouska - another Italian grape variety - is the result of a natural intraspecific cross between Tuscan malvasia and Prosecco. Under the name of Glera, it is registered in the Official Catalogue of wine grape varieties list A. It can be found in practically all of the former Yugoslavia, and more surprisingly in Argentina, but is virtually unknown in France.
white wines from the region of Mendoza go well with generally quite well with dishes of pork, rich fish (salmon, tuna etc) or vegetarian such as recipes of pork cheeks confit in cider, quiche with leeks and fresh salmon from flo or leek, goat cheese and bacon quiche.
On the nose in the region of Mendoza often reveals types of flavors of pineapple, tropical fruit or microbio and sometimes also flavors of vegetal, oak or tree fruit. In the mouth in the region of Mendoza is a powerful with a nice freshness.
The grapes have been picked and Argentina is able to file another successful harvest for 2022, to match the previous four years. However producers are reporting that 2022 was the most singular of recent vintages, with each region experiencing its own challenges. Mendoza ‘The 2021-2022 season reminds me of a good Hollywood movie,’ said Martín Kaiser, viticulturist at Doña Paula in Mendoza. ‘It certainly kept us entertained. Our hearts were in our mouths all the way through, but it had a great end ...
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