Torrontes

[from Eric Asimov at The New York Times, 1 February, 2011, thank you David Galland]

Ready for the Next Argentine Invasion?

TORRONTÉS has been touted as the hottest thing to arrive from Argentina since the tango. Or at least since malbec. It’s a grape, and a white wine, and some say it will be as popular in the United States as pinot grigio.

Well, one day, perhaps. But first things first. Have you even heard of torrontés? The grape is grown pretty much nowhere else in the world but Argentina. Yes, Spain also has a grape called torrontés, but the two grapes are apparently unrelated. The Argentine grape has been shown genetically to be a hybrid of the muscat of Alexandria and the criolla, or mission, as it’s known in English.

The ancestry of the torrontés is interesting only in that it most definitely bears more than a passing resemblance to the gloriously fragrant muscat. The best torrontés are highly aromatic, exuberantly floral with a rich, hothouse citrus scent as well. Dip your nose into a glass, and you don’t know whether it ought to be sold as a wine or a perfume.

Argentina has a talent for obscure grapes. It took the malbec, a red grape that is forgotten in Bordeaux, overlooked in Cahors and known as côt in the Loire Valley, and turned it into a juicy, fruity, money-generating phenomenon identified purely with Argentina. Can torrontés become malbec’s white counterpart?

Indeed, in 2010, Argentina exported more than 231,000 cases of torrontés to the United States, according to Wines of Argentina, a trade group. That figure may seem minuscule next to the 3.15 million cases of Argentine malbec the United States received that year. But compared with the mere 29,333 cases of torrontés exported to the United States in 2004, the growth has been remarkable.

Given the rate of the torrontés onslaught, the wine panel felt compelled recently to taste through 20 bottles. We could easily have done 50, given the sheer amount of wine out there. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Brett Feore, the beverage director at Apiary in the East Village, and Carla Rzeszewski, the wine director at the Breslin and the John Dory Oyster Bar on West 29th Street.

It was clear right away that torrontés has issues of identity. These wines were all over the stylistic map. Some were indeed dry, light-bodied and crisp, like pinot grigios. Others were broad, heavy and rich, like ultra-ripe California chardonnays.

This may be a problem. All genres of wine have their stylistic deviations, but consumers can often read the cues. Chablis is a chardonnay that one can reasonably assume will be lean and minerally, without oak flavors. One would likewise expect a California chardonnay to be richer, and oaky flavors would not surprise. Of course, exceptions exist, often from labels that have been around long enough to establish an identity of their own. But torrontés has no clear identity, not yet at least, and the unpredictable nature of what’s in the bottles will not help.

Wherever the wines landed on the spectrum, we found that their level of quality depended on one crucial component: acidity. Whether light or heavy, if the wines had enough acidity they came across as lively and vivacious. The rest landed with a thud, flaccid, unctuous and unpleasant.

Florence had other issues with the wines. “Some were concentrated, but finished with a kind of watery emptiness,” she said. “And often, the nose and the palate were not on speaking terms.” That is to say, the aromas often did not signal clearly how the wines would taste.

So, what did we like? Those beautiful aromas — or as Brett put it, “floral, mandarin, muscat, nice!” Carla found a touch of bitterness in some wines, which she very much appreciated.

Just to make torrontés a little more complicated, it turns out the grape in Argentina has three sub-varieties: the torrontés Riojano, the best and most aromatic, which comes from the northern province of La Rioja and Salta; the less aromatic torrontés Sanjuanino, from the San Juan province south of La Rioja; and the much-less aromatic torrontés Mendocino, from the Mendoza area, which — fasten your seat belts — may not be related to the other two at all.

While I would never want to assume which sub-variety was used, we did find a geographical correlation. Of the 20 bottles in the tasting, 11 were from Salta and other northern provinces. Eight were from Mendoza, and one was from San Juan. But of our top 10, seven were from the north, including our top four. Only three were from Mendoza, and they tended to be more subdued aromatically.

Our No. 1 wine, and our best value at $15, was the 2009 Cuma from Michel Torino, from the Cafayate Valley in Salta. With plenty of acidity, the Cuma was fresh and lively, which made its aromas of mandarin and cantaloupe vibrant rather than heavy. Likewise, our No. 2, the 2009 Alamos from Catena, also from Salta, was thoroughly refreshing with aromas of orange blossoms.

The story was similar for Nos. 3 and 4, both from Salta, too. The 2010 Crios de Susana Balbo was fragrant with melon and citrus, and well balanced, as was the 2009 Tomás Achával Nómade, which had an added herbal touch. By contrast the No. 5 Norton Lo Tengo and the No. 6 Goulart, both from Mendoza, were far more reticent aromatically though pleasing and balanced enough.

At this stage in the evolution of torrontés quite a bit of experimentation is still going on. Some wines are clearly made in steel tanks, which accentuates the fresh, lively aromas. Others may have been briefly aged in oak barrels, adding depth and texture to the wines. Thankfully, we found very little evidence of new oak in our tasting.

For my part, I was encouraged by the wines we liked best, particularly our top five. Their aromatic exuberance is singular and pleasing, with the caution that the wines ought to be consumed while young. As for comparisons to pinot grigio, they seem both premature and misleading. The big-selling pinot grigios are so indistinct that they offend no one but those seeking distinctive wines. Torrontés, on the other hand, are quite unusual, which confers on them the power to offend. In wine, that’s often a good thing.

Tasting Report

BEST VALUE
Michel Torino Cuma, $15, ***
Cafayate Valley Torrontés 2009
Fresh and lively with depth, presence and flavors of orange and cantaloupe. (Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York)

Catena Alamos, $14, ***
Salta Torrontés 2009
Fragrant and refreshing with aromas of flowers and citrus. (Alamos U.S.A., Hayward, Calif.)

Crios de Susana Balbo, $13, ** ½
Salta Torrontés 2010
Well balanced with lingering flavors of mandarin and honeydew. (Vine Connections, Sausalito, Calif.)

Tomás Achával Nómade, $17, ** ½
Cafayate Valley Torrontés 2009
Light-bodied and balanced with floral aromas and orange and herbal flavors. (Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York)

Norton Lo Tengo, $11, ** ½
Mendoza Torrontés 2009
Full-bodied but fresh and balanced with flavors of citrus and tropical fruit. (Tgic Importers, Woodland Hills, Calif.)

Goulart, $14, **
Mendoza Torrontés 2009
Subtle and restrained with flavors of minerals, melon and herbs. (Southern Starz, Huntington Beach, Calif.)

Colomé Calchaquí Valley, $12, **
Torrontés 2009
Balanced and pleasing with flavors of peaches, flowers and citrus. (The Hess Wine Collection, Napa, Calif.)

La Yunta Famatina Valley, $10, **
La Rioja Torrontés 2010
Straightforward with orange and herbal flavors. (SWG Imports, Bend, Ore.)

San Telmo Esencia, $15, **
Mendoza Torrontés 2009
Flavors of melon and citrus but a bit heavy. (Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines, Napa, Calif.)

Terrazas de los Andes, $21, **
Reserva Salta Torrontés 2008
Aromas of ripe oranges and flowers but a touch hot. (Moët-Hennessy, New York)