Patagonia: The New Frontier

With climate change pushing them into cooler territory, intrepid South American winemakers are overcoming extreme conditions to produce fresh and delicate wines at the continent’s southernmost point. Amanda Barnes finds out more

In the past decade, winemakers in Chile and Argentina have moved beyond what was seen as the final frontier for South American viticulture and into the cool climates and wild terrains of Patagonia. Growing confidence and expertise; a quest for lower temperatures and greater water availability in the face of climate change; and a thirst for adventure – all of these factors are leading the current generation of winemakers further south.

The sparsely populated wilderness of Patagonia, at the tail end of the continent, has enraptured voyagers for centuries. When the famed 16th-century explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed around these southern archipelagoes, he described it as the land of giants – the land of the patagón.

Patagonia is indeed nothing short of giantic: 1 million km 2 of land surrounded by three oceans. Awe-inspiring landscapes range from hanging glaciers, mountain peaks and dense forests to snowcapped volcanoes, wind-whipped deserts and crystal-clear lakes.

In Argentina, Patagonia begins at the Huincul Fault or the Neuquén Basin, where the Río Negro runs eastwards, providing fertile lands that have been planted with vines for over a century. No one, however, dared plant further south, where temperatures dropped, winds picked up and conditions grew harsher. The feasible viticultural limit was seen as 39°S.

Virgin terrain

What Patagonia did offer, though, was excellent fly-fishing. And it was on one such fishing trip that Mendoza vine-grower Bernardo Weinert pondered how the conditions looked remarkably similar to those of another favourite fishing spot of his: Oregon in the US – where he’d tasted decent local wine.