The Search for Serious Torrontés

Since I first tasted a wine made from the Torrontés grape several years back, I’ve been a fan. It’s the white counterpart to Argentine Malbec in the sense that only in Argentina are these wines a Big Deal, the star performers for both the domestic and export markets. So when the tasting road show put on by Wines of Argentina came to San Francisco, I knew what I wanted to focus on. 

Whenever I attend these big walk-around tastings, I pick some slice of the action to concentrate on—a variety, a region, a price range, something manageable that I can bring into focus and explore in some depth before palate fatigue sets in. Going from Table 1 to Table 942 in order, switching from whites to reds to dessert wines to bubblies and back again, over and over, is great fun but rarely a learning experience, at least for me.

So Torrontés it would be, and fortunately my drink card promised there would be a dozen of them. What I was looking for, besides the likelihood of some charming wine, was the Torrontés range—specifically, can that grape be made into something more than light, crisp, delightfully aromatic quaffing wine? Every Torrontés I’d ever had fit that profile, always pleasant, never profound. By the end of my rounds, the verdict was in—in the hands of the winemakers from the nation that knows its ways best, that’s what Torrontés does, and pretty much the only thing it does.

It turns out at least three grape varieties are subsumed under the generic name Torrontés. Torrontés Riojano—the most widely planted, mainly in the province of La Rioja—and Torrontés Sanjuanino—grown mainly in the province of San Juan—are both crosses between Muscat of Alexandria and Criolla Chica, the pink grape that formed the basis for Argentine jug wine forever and also showed up in California as the Mission grape.  Torrontés Mendocino, with much smaller plantings, also has some Muscat parentage. It’s not hard to sniff out where the aromatic characteristics common to all three come from; and it also seems plausible that the undistinguished Criolla inheritance puts a distinct upper limit on what can be expected from the Torrontés crosses.

What you get from the category is beguiling aromas, good acidity, refreshing liveliness in the mouth—and price tags generally under $10. A Reserva Torrontés from Lavaque, listed with a $25 retail price, was on the menu but not available, since the importer had decided not to try it on the US market. Most of the winery representatives said that few if any reserve-style wines—bigger, more extracted, barrel-aged, capable of maturing in the bottle—were made anywhere in Argentina. One winemaker explained that the variety had a strong tendency toward oxidation, which could ruin the delicate aromatics, so nearly everyone did the wine all-stainless, all-the-time.

There are apparently some late harvest-style dessert wines made from Torrontés, which sounds just right. None of them were getting poured—no surprise, given the resistance of the Pepsi-chugging US public to “sweet” wines. But the tasting did include a couple of sparkling incarnations of the grape, more or less on the Moscato d’Asti model—sweet but crisp, low alcohol, bubbly for fun, not pretense. The 2005 Deseado Natural Sweet Sparkling Torrontés from Familia Schroeder (list price $13.99) was particularly tasty.

My quest for “serious” Argentine Torrontés was unfulfilled. Which means that from now on, I don’t need to worry about having some kind of meaningful relationship with this grape. I just need to buy it by the case next summer and wallow in its endearing simplicity!

Comments

[Alder]

Tim,

I agree that your search for "serious" torrontes will likely go unfulfilled. Just like a search for a "serious" Vino Verdhe or Muscadet might. I will suggest, however, that Torrontes is one of the best wine pairings around with (non spicy) Chinese food, that I know of.

[David J Rodriguez]

Argentinos I've queried on the topic tend to dis any Torrontés not from the province of Salta.
I've had Lavaque's economy label 'Quara' & the aromatics are, to this sinus-troubled nose, amazing--
I discern acacia, bay leaf...& flowers I've not learned the names of.
I'm just a little sensitive to the level of residual sugar...

Wish I'd discovered your writing & 'garagiste' shop last year, when I cut my teeth on winemaking-by-committee
on three diverse projects at Crushpad. After nearly a month of cold-feet postponing, hope to
fly South in a couple of weeks to meet, taste & hopefully work out a deal on a test barrel or three
with an amenable bodeguero...we'll see how it goes.

[David J Rodriguez]

PS, thanks for the heads-up on Torrontés parentage-- my copy of Jancis Robinson's little guide to wine grapes is eleven years old, mentions that seemingly different grapes, both in Spain & Argentina, get called Torrontés, or Torontel...not much more...