I should say, that as someone who visited Argentina in June, the market and philosophy of winemakers there is pretty unique, both in good and bad ways.
I didn't visit Mendoza, but I did go to Salta. The problem is the domestic market's tastes are on lockdown because the import tariffs are huge, so domestically there's not much interest in wine besides, "Is this red or white and full of booze?" The one foreign wine I saw when I was there was a bottle of Dom '00 for about 600 dollars, and it's not because of a bad mark up, but instead the huge protectionist government tariffs.
As far as day-to-day wine is concerned, as long as it's vaguely competently made and relatively cheap, they don't care. Every supermarket, restaurant, and wine shop I saw had the (same) wide collection of domestic product.
For export, the point chasers are definitely firmly in place. Since the domestic Argentine market for wine is almost entirely concerned with price instead of quality and exports are promoted, the wine markers are, for the most part, making wine to please the large American/ critics. This, at least, is what I've found of the wines which come to America
However, of the producers I visited in Cafayete, I did see a fair range of styles and sizes.
There was a guy named Salvador Figueroa who was attempting to make the Harlan of Malbecs. His premier bottling saw two years in new french oak, 15% Alcohol, and was from individually sourced, hand-picket vineyards, all above 1700 meters with tiny yields. His production facilities were very small as well. 1 employee, 10-ish 7 hecoliter tanks, and one 27 hectoliter blending tank. To my knowledge, it's not being exported. The wine's impressive, but of the international cut of cult California Cab.
J.L. Mugnier was a mid-sized producer, with several bottlings that I enjoyed, principally a rose and a Chardonnay-based sparkling wine. Larger production that Salvador, but not a giant, several thousand cases all told, probably. I don't speak spanish, beyond that of the dirty kitchen variety, so I wasn't able to pick up a ton of details. Tasting the wines, there was definitely more of a focus on freshness and a distinct lack of spoofyness.
Other than that, Bodegas Do Esteca/Michel Torino was interesting (though large-scaled). They make some 90-year-old old vine Tannat which is awesome.
The thing to recognize is that while it's hot and high desert, the nights are always very cold because of the altitude and so the acid/phenol/sugar balance is pretty solid. I definitely never confuse these wines for thermonuclear Australia candy explosions.
The general level of wine making is very competent, if not inspired to express something individual, so it's very rare that I taste wines from this area that are crappy. As 8-12 dollar quaffing wine, it rarely fails to deliver. The Torrontes in particular is universally decent to good in quality, since it's all grown at a high altitude and I don't think anyone's oaking them. As cheap, aeromatic, dry, high-acid white, aperetif-style white it's a fantastic blind buy for summer party/picnic.
With Malbec's it's a little trickier, since you really need to know the style of your producer, and they're all over the board. But again, because of a high altitude and general lack of huge operating capital, they don't oak the living shit out of them and don't generally end up with super spoofy, ripe wines. Conversely, they are often sort of soul-less and devoid of terroir.
