Chapter 3
of 5
The high-altitude style
Torrontés grows across Argentina — La Rioja, Mendoza, San Juan — but it reaches its peak in the high-altitude north, above all around Cafayate in Salta's Calchaquí Valley. The reason is a balancing act.
Left in a warm, low vineyard, Torrontés can turn flabby and bitter — all perfume, no backbone. But up at 1,700 metres and beyond, the intense mountain sun drives those signature aromatics sky-high, while the cold Andean nights lock in the acidity that keeps the wine fresh and lifted. Altitude is what turns Torrontés from a simple, pretty wine into a genuinely thrilling one. It's no accident that Argentina's oldest living vine — planted in Cafayate in 1862 — is a Torrontés.
Altitude is what turns Torrontés from a simple, pretty wine into a genuinely thrilling one.
