South America’s Treasure Trove of Old Vines & Unique Wines
South America’s treasure trove of old vines & unique wines by Amanda Barnes
It still surprises me how far off the radar the old vine wines and regions of South America are. As the oldest wine continent of the New World, grapevines and wine production made their way to the Americas over 500 years ago. And South America - notably Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile - has been regularly producing and exporting wine for more than five centuries.
With its geographical isolation from North America and Europe, phylloxera has barely touched the wine regions of South America and there is a panoply of ungrafted old vines to be found making distinctive local wines. In fact, Argentina has well over 7,000 hectares of 70+ year old ‘survivor vines’ and Chile lays claim to some 15,000 hectares of them.
Of those, the most impressive in age are undoubtedly the old Criolla vines which come from the founding varieties of Listán Prieto (best know today as País) and Moscatel de Alejandría. From these two varieties came a large family of native Criolla varieties, born in South America. Torrontés from Argentina is perhaps the best known, but there are other weird and wonderful wines being made from other native varieties including Vischoqueña from Bolivia and Quebranta from Peru. Some of these old vines are well over 200 years old, dating back to the late 1700s [see South America’s old vine register] and early 1800s, and are still producing grapes which are made into remarkably affordable wines.
Criolla family tree, from The South America Wine Guide book
These old vines often get overlooked by international wine drinkers, perhaps because they are less accessible or lesser known. But South America also has a range of old vine ‘international’ varieties including Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Semillon, which are usually planted on their own roots and can sometimes be over 150 years old too.
The story of these varieties in South America really started in the mid-1800s with the arrival of technicians brought from France to modernise local viticulture. They brought with them many different varieties in the 1850s — which later proved to be a rather serendipitous move.
As phylloxera ravaged Europe and parts of the New World at the end of the 19th century, South America escaped the widespread phylloxera plague and remained a sanctuary for these ancient varieties which were lost elsewhere. Many of the old vines from the period still remain ungrafted and in production. It was because of South America’s great escape from phylloxera that a handful of varieties which were considered extinct in Europe were discovered here.
The most famous of which is undoubtedly Carmenère. Carmenère, mistaken for Merlot, was planted throughout Chile in the 19th and 20th centuries and called Merlot Chileno. It wasn’t until 1994 that its true identity was revealed by a visiting ampelographer, Jean Michel Boursiquot, who discovered that this variety, which was considered practically extinct, had actually been thriving in Chile for over a century and a half.
The rediscovery of Carmenère is just one of the many secrets to have unravelled from the gnarly folds of South America’s old vines. The are fascinating anecdotes about Chasselas, Bequignol and Trousseau too… This is just a taste of some of the old vines and wines that can be found in South America today, and it’s high time to get these fascinating wines and vines on the radar so we can ensure they are here to stay.
