In São Paulo, Massimo, the great and extravagant figure behind his great and extravagant restaurant of the same name, tells me that there are not only well-written and popular wine columns in São Paulo’s two main newspapers but call-in wine shows on the talk-radio stations. “We seem to be particularly fond of sparkling wines. Chandon is having a great success making wines here.”
In Buenos Aires, journalist José de Alzaga serves two bottles of fine red wine before opening the really good stuff, Alto, from the Alta Vista winery, in Mendoza.
Alto is made from Malbec, the wonder grape of Argentina. In Chile, the storied grape is Carmenère. Whereas many other South American wineries came with the 19th-century Italian immigrations, Chile’s were begun decades earlier by wealthy Francophiles who had brought not just vines but experienced workers from Bordeaux. Protected by the Andes and the Pacific, Chile never got phylloxera, the root louse that wiped out most of the world’s vineyards at the end of the 19th century. As a result, Chile became a nursery and museum of lost grapes. Long presumed to be a form of Merlot, Carmenère wasn’t even correctly identified as a varietal from pre-phylloxera Bordeaux until 1991.
Malbec in Argentina. Carmenère in Chile. Tannat in Uruguay and Brazil.
“Tempranillo,” says José Alberto Zuccardi, head of one of Argentina’s largest family-owned wineries, La Agrícola. At his facility, the money seems to be going more into research and development than into architecture. “We like the Spanish and Italian grapes: Tempranillo, Torrontés, Bonarda, Sangiovese—all grown with organic techniques. I believe these are all possible new keys to the future export market.”
“Do you think Argentina will ever overtake you in exports of fine wine?” I ask the director general of a Chilean export group a few days later.
“The ’90s were our golden decade. Chile went from nothing to six hundred million dollars in exports. Argentina is just starting. They have terrible political problems. But of course, Argentina is very big.”
After tasting many very fine wines, touring dazzling wineries and picture-perfect vineyards, considering all the ambitious experiments with new grapes and styles, and tallying the massive foreign investment in the future of South American wine, I find it refreshing to accompany Djanir Guerra on a tour of his Rio Grande do Sul winery, Vinícola Chapadão (still subtitled “Guerra Brothers Inc.” on the business card, in honor of his father and uncle). There is no fancy French oak. One room is used as storage for his beer distribution business, which explains the empty cases of beer stacked around Guerra’s fishing boat. While an employee draws off a bottle of tinto for me, Guerra tells me how his Italian immigrant great-grandfather came here and built the place in 1889.
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