The French Malbec grape first arrived in Argentina in the mid-1850s, as part of a government program to improve all aspects of Argentine agriculture. In 1852, Argentine President Domingo Faustino Sermiento hired Michel Pouget, a prominent French agronomist, to create university level programs in agricultural engineering in Mendoza.
Pouget set up the Quinta Normal, with an experimental vineyard where different varieties of European winegrapes were studied, and Malbec was among them.
In the high desert of Mendoza, Malbec prospered. The intense and abundant sunshine of the high altitude vineyards allowed the vines to ripen and mature fully, producing an intensity of color and flavor not seen in the cooler, wetter vineyards of France.
Medoza became known as a “high desert oasis,” the centerpiece of Argentina’s vineyard development. The peaks of the Andes intercepted the rain sweeping east off the Atlantic, and the vineyards of Mendoza were carefully irrigated with the pure water of melting mountain snow.
The loose sandy soils of Mendoza were friendly to the vines, but inhospitable to Phylloxera and other pests which had plagued Malbec in France.
In Mendoza, Malbec was reborn as a richer, rounder, more complex and engaging wine, not merely Malbec anymore, but Argentine Malbec.
