“We make moun­tain wines here,” says Sebas­tián Zuc­car­di, sta­ting the obvious. He’s stan­ding in front of the solid-sto­ne winery he built two years ago in Uco Valley’s Alta­mi­ra dis­trict at nearly 4,000 feet abo­ve sea level whe­re his esta­te vine­yards prac­ti­cally hug the snow-cap­ped Andes Mountains.

Sin­ce joi­ning his family’s Mai­pu-based wine busi­ness, foun­ded by his grand­father in the 1960s, Zuc­car­di has been con­vin­ced that Uco Valley is the futu­re for Argen­ti­na, and he has devo­ted most of his energy and resour­ces to get­ting as clo­se to the moun­tains as possible.

“The com­bi­na­tion of cal­cium car­bo­na­te-rich, allu­vial soils at this ele­va­tion is uni­que to Uco Valley,” he explains. “We can make fresh, mine­ral-dri­ven, high-energy wines here—totally dif­fe­rent from the fruity, for­mu­laic Mal­becs that peo­ple asso­cia­te with Men­do­za. Uco is barely two deca­des old, so we are just now begin­ning to unders­tand our terroir.”

Zuc­car­di is among a gro­wing group of pas­sio­na­te pro­du­cers wor­king to clas­sify Uco’s high-ele­va­tion terroirs and peti­tion for Geo­graphi­cal Indi­ca­tion (GI) sta­tus for the emer­ging dis­tricts that, although young, are res­pon­si­ble for Argentina’s para­digm-shif­ting wines.

Too High, Too Cold, Too Harsh

When Nico­lás Cate­na plan­ted his Adrian­na Vine­yard in Uco’s Gual­ta­llary dis­trict in 1993, most belie­ved he would fail. Lower Uco had some vine­yards, but no one had dared cul­ti­va­te gra­pes at 5,000 feet abo­ve sea level; the risk of frost was extre­me, and gro­wers assu­med gra­pes couldn’t ripen in the harsh, high-desert landscape.

But Cate­na was deter­mi­ned to find the col­dest pla­ce in Men­do­za to plant vines, and the intro­duc­tion of drip irri­ga­tion to the region meant that viti­cul­tu­re at higher sites was finally pos­si­ble. He set up weather sta­tions throughout the region and dis­co­ve­red that whi­le tem­pe­ra­tu­res were simi­lar to Cham­pag­ne, the bright­ness and extra hours of the sun­light could result in the holy grail of wine­ma­king: “Gra­pes on the edge of ripe­ness with fully matu­re tan­nins, natu­ral aci­dity, and only 13 per­cent alcohol,” explains his daugh­ter Lau­ra Cate­na, who now mana­ges the family’s Bode­ga Cate­na Zapata.

Around the same time, Dutch entre­pre­neur Mijn­dert Pon saw simi­lar poten­tial in Uco’s higher reaches. But ins­tead of a sin­gle vine­yard, he bet much big­ger, plan­ting hun­dreds of acres of mostly Mal­bec vines bet­ween 1996 and 1999, and cons­truc­ting a mas­si­ve, gra­vity-fed winery chris­te­ned Bode­gas Salen­tein. The first to put “Uco Valley” on its labels, Salen­tein is locally regar­ded as the region’s “loco­mo­ti­ve.”

The results from the­se pio­nee­ring vine­yards were evi­dent within seve­ral har­vests. Gra­pes grown here pos­ses­sed higher mine­ra­lity, more aci­dity, and fir­mer tan­nins com­pa­red to lower sites. “I had never seen acid levels like this in Argen­ti­na befo­re,” des­cri­bes Salentein’s wine­ma­ker of 20 years, José “Pepe” Galan­te (for­merly the wine­ma­ker at Cate­na). “They are the same as Chablis.”

Word spread quickly. The last two deca­des have seen explo­si­ve growth in Uco with dozens of new wine­ries and high demand for Uco fruit from pro­du­cers outsi­de the region. Vine­yard pri­ces have increa­sed twenty times in some cove­ted dis­tricts. Trail­bla­zers have con­ti­nued to test limits, plan­ting suc­cess­ful vine­yards well over 5,000 feet and others are pushing higher still: José Lova­glio, owner and wine­ma­ker of Vaglio, and the son of Susa­na Bal­bo, has plan­ted a Pinot Noir vine­yard (not yet in pro­duc­tion) in Uco’s La Carre­ra dis­trict that sits abo­ve 6,500 feet.

An Appellation Renaissance 

As many of the­se ori­gi­nal vine­yards come of age, the terroir con­ver­sa­tion has shif­ted from simply ele­va­tion to inclu­de soils, a topic Uco wine­ma­kers are obses­si­ve about. Some vine­yards have dozens of cali­ca­tas—eerily gra­ve-like pits dug in bet­ween vines to expo­se various layers of sub­soil. Some reveal lar­ge round boul­ders, others mari­ne fos­sils, peb­bles, or chalky cal­cium car­bo­na­te depo­sits; various com­bi­na­tions of mate­rial left behind when gla­ciers and rivers pushed allu­vial depo­sits down the slo­pes of the Andes millions of years ago.

Zuc­car­di dug 180 cali­ca­tas in his Pie­dra Infi­ni­ta vine­yard alo­ne (sour­ce of the acclai­med sin­gle vine­yard Pie­dra Infi­ni­ta Mal­bec), which unco­ve­red 40 dif­fe­rent soil types. Lau­ra Cate­na iden­ti­fied more than 200 dis­tinct par­cels in the Adrian­na vine­yard, which she now vini­fies sepa­ra­tely. For pro­du­cers here, the tre­men­do­us diver­sity of soils and micro­cli­ma­tes is what makes Uco so dis­tinct from Mendoza’s two other gro­wing areas—Maipu and Lujan de Cuyo—and what they belie­ve calls for a more spe­ci­fic clas­si­fi­ca­tion system.

“Our gro­wers have been pushing hard for this GI sys­tem in Uco to focus on regio­nal spe­ci­fi­city,” says Jonathan Cha­plin, co-foun­der of Bra­zos Wine, a Brooklyn-based import com­pany which repre­sents many of the new small-sca­le Uco pro­du­cers. “No one in Argen­ti­na was tal­king about regions ten years ago, and today that’s all we do—we bring maps everywhere.”

This new laser focus on terroir coin­ci­des with a move towards a fresher wine sty­le in Uco—and not only from the youn­ger gene­ra­tion of pro­du­cers. “Today we make wines that are focu­sed on the pla­ce, with less new oak and ear­lier har­vest dates,” says Zuc­car­di, who ins­ta­lled 160 con­cre­te eggs and lar­ge fou­dre at his new winery. “Wor­king with con­cre­te and lar­ge vats is a return to the wine­ma­king cul­tu­re of the 1930s.” Salen­tein and other esta­blished names like Matías Ric­ci­te­lli and Paul Hobbs report pic­king their fruit as much as a month ear­lier than in the past and using more who­le-clus­ter fer­men­ta­tion for added fresh­ness. With less alcohol and extrac­tion, a clea­rer pic­tu­re of Uco’s regio­nal diver­sity is coming into focus.

Gualtallary: A Sunnier, Drier Burgundy 

In a cor­ner of Uco’s Tupun­ga­to region with vine­yards clim­bing to a mile abo­ve sea level, Gual­ta­llary stands out for its rocky, allu­vial, chalky soils. Con­vin­ced this high moun­tain oasis was ideal for orga­nic far­ming, Lan­gue­doc vig­ne­ron Jean Bous­quet plan­ted vine­yards in the sha­dow of the Tupun­ga­to moun­tain in the early 1990s. Today, Domai­ne Bous­quet is the lar­gest expor­ter of orga­nic wine from Argen­ti­na, pro­du­cing 300,000 cases of (shoc­kingly affor­da­ble) wine. Bous­quet just debu­ted their first unoa­ked, sul­fi­te-free wine, Vir­gen Malbec.

“Gual­ta­llary is fresh­ness and ele­gan­ce,” says daugh­ter Anne Bous­quet, who now runs the domai­ne. “We get bright red berry, mine­ral, and flo­ral notes in our wines, as well as more struc­tu­re.” Indeed, The Cate­na Ins­ti­tu­te research cen­ter found that the uni­que lumi­no­sity of moun­tain sun­light in Gual­ta­llary increa­ses tan­nins in gra­pe skins.

Gual­ta­llary pro­du­cers find inten­se terroir expres­sion coming from even very young vines. Edgar­do (Edy) del Popo­lo and David Bono­mi left jobs at com­mer­cial wine­ries to plant bush vines that natu­rally yield 40 per­cent less fruit than the region’s average—under one pound per plant. Their first vin­ta­ge, 2012, sho­wed an aro­ma­tic com­ple­xity and fine-grai­ned tan­nins that would take years to deve­lop in young vines grown in other regions, Popo­lo belie­ves. “In Gual­ta­llary we are able to craft wines with rare purity that really speak of their lands­ca­pe.” (Gual­ta­llary has yet to be offi­cially appro­ved as a GI becau­se the name is a regis­te­red tra­de­mark owned by a sin­gle producer.)

Caber­net Franc is gene­ra­ting a lot of inter­est here today; though less than 1 per­cent of plan­tings, it’s the district’s most exci­ting gra­pe, many claim. “Gual­ta­llary is the best pla­ce for Caber­net Franc in Argentina—it needs ele­va­tion,” says Matias Miche­li­ni, who foun­ded Zor­zal with brothers Gerar­do and Juan Pablo in 2007. Fer­men­ted and aged in con­cre­te eggs, Zorzal’s Eggo Fran­co is pep­pery, savory, and earthy with elec­tric aci­dity. Domai­ne Bous­quet, Ruti­ni, and Ande­lu­na are also big Caber­net Franc cham­pions here.

Paraje Altamira: Structured, Savory Malbec

In the southern Uco Valley, the Para­je Alta­mi­ra dis­trict bro­ke away from the lar­ger La Con­sul­ta region in San Car­los in 2013—the first GI decla­red based on terroir research, not poli­ti­cal boun­da­ries, which paved the way for Uco’s GI system’s evo­lu­tion. Acha­val Ferrer’s Fin­ca Alta­mi­ra is arguably the district’s most famous wine; more recently Zuc­car­di and Altos Las Hor­mi­gas have built wine­ries here.

Alta­mi­ra fea­tu­res hea­vier soils than Gual­ta­llary, with loads of silt and cal­cium carbonate—and some very lar­ge rocks (which makes plan­ting vine­yards costly and dif­fi­cult). Wines here tend to be fuller-bodied with dark fruit and herbs; Malbec—by far the district’s star grape—shows power and con­cen­tra­tion with fresh aci­dity. Zuccardi’s Poli­go­nos Alta­mi­ra, one in a series of sin­gle vine­yard Mal­becs made in dif­fe­rent dis­tricts, illus­tra­tes Altamira’s uni­que underl­ying sali­nity. “The cal­ca­reous soils here for­ce vines dee­per and add struc­tu­re, which the Mal­bec variety can often lack,” Zuc­car­di explains.