Tempiers and fails

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
as scarce as satisfying wines made above 500 meters.
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Um, Monte Bello? (ca. 750m IIRC)

Sierra stuff from Steve? (I would think well above 500m)

Singerriedel? Wachstum Bodenstein?

Carema?

Etna rosso?

Seems like there must be a few that appeal....
 
I'd never thought of [elevation > 500m] as a negative quality indicator before. Is this an Andean prejudice?

But as you head toward the tropics, best to head uphill, no?
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
I'd never thought of [elevation > 500m] as a negative quality indicator before. Is this an Andean prejudice?

But as you head toward the tropics, best to head uphill, no?
Click to expand...

I don't think that anyone, including Oswaldo, has argued against planting at elevation. Perhaps this has been conflated with Oswaldo's claim that Mourvedre does best by the sea? And given the elevation of most of the big name regions in Argentina, I'd find it hard to believe that there is an Andean prejudice against high elevation vineyards.

Mark Lipton
 
A little bit more seriously, your 500 meter distinction is incomprehensible to me, Oswaldo. The best (by far) producer in Priorat, Terroir al Lìmit, has all of its vineyards above 500 m. In Rioja, vineyards are between 400 and 700 m, and all of the best producers, from López de Heredia to La Rioja Alta, have a lot of vines above 500 m; indeed, the highest Rioja vineyards, at 800 m, belong to Remelluri - one of the best current red wine producers (the whites, which I love, are more debatable in a NY fundamentalist context since their blend is so unusual). Vega Sicilia's vineyards are all far above 500 m (around 700 m). In viticultural terms, altitude compensates for latitude and is the main reason why we can make reasonably fine wine is a southerly, extremely dry and extremely warm place like Spain.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
I'd never thought of [elevation > 500m] as a negative quality indicator before. Is this an Andean prejudice?

But as you head toward the tropics, best to head uphill, no?
Click to expand...

Yes, Andean prejudice, or perhaps judice. When latitude no longer allows balanced wine at sea level, winemakers seem to think that they can just climb up a mountain and all will be well (Victor says "In viticultural terms, altitude compensates for latitude"). But this compensation can only go so far. Alterations happen in the ratio of heat to light, with the oxygen, the microflora, and at some point (no doubt varying from place to place), altitude becomes increasingly inadequate as a remedy for not being in the right latitude in the first place. The long and short of it is that, if you can't make balanced wine at sea level, you shouldn't be making it! Real wine, I mean. Industrial wine can be made anywhere.

I know I'm being outrageous. 500 to 900m must be acceptable compensation for parts of Spain. But I like the fatboy notion that the greatest wines come from marginal northerly climates, where every year it's touch and go whether you'll lose everything to nature. Glorious goods born of noble struggle.
 
Mark,

I express myself poorly. Oswaldo has sometimes expressed skepticism about high-elevation Andean viticulture.
 
I'm going to ask María José López de Heredia about the marginality of the climate at Haro. I hadn't realized it, but that must be the reason for the greatness. She'll be thrilled to bits to hear about it.

You should judge vineyards after seeing them, walking on them, pruning them, harvesting them, seeing how their juice evolves in the cellar. I've been lucky to do that for myself in many places - 10 meters high at Châteauneuf, 1,000 meters in Cuenca. (Not 3,000 in Salta, which indeed does seem ludicrous.) But in Europe we've had great wines from all sorts of altitudes for many centuries. Way before "industrial wine" (whatever one understands as such) was invented.
 
Oswaldo,

You might consider adopting a prejudice against low-latitude vines rather than high elevations? The long photosynthetic cycle of long summer days in the upper 40s is certainly an important factor in the way northern wines ripen. Doubtless Tasmanian wines as well, though you couldn't prove it by me.

But when you do, remember that Barcelona is far north of San Francisco.

I wonder if it helps that you can see the ocean from Montee Bello?
 
The long and short of it is that, if you can't make balanced wine at sea level, you shouldn't be making it! Real wine, I mean. Industrial wine can be made anywhere.

I know I'm being outrageous.
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I have three questions: Are you being outrageous merely for the sake of bombast? (Or do you actually believe even a toned-down version of this?) Of your 100 favourite wines, are more than ten of them grown at altitude below 100m? Is sea-level per se a relevant point of reference? I tend to think that relative elevation is key. In marginal climes the sacred hillside seems so important.
 
Just for a new data point, I've heard (from relatively reputable sources) that there are vineyards at around 6,600 ft. in Choapa in northern Chile...whatever that converts to...don't have the time to do it now. Pretty sure it's more than 2000m, though...

Highest altitudes that I saw in Salta when I was there was around 1700m-2000m. Nothing as high as 3000m, as far as I heard.
 
Ignorance and logic--not a great combination, I know--show a certain basis to what Oswaldo is saying that might be formulated in a less in your face fashion. I take it that there would be agreement that some climates are unsuited for making wines and that those climates bear a rough and ready correlation with latitude. In other words, until very recently, and for some still, one could not make great wines at say the equator and generally, in Europe, south of England and north of the Mediterranean shore was probably best. On the other hand, coolness exists at higher altitudes even in latitudes unsuitably closer to the equator. But high altitude is not the same as temperate climate and thus it won't substitute for it.

The claim then shouldn't be that all high altitude vineyards are bad-a claim subject to constant empirical discomfirmation-but that seeking high altitude vineyards at latitudes normally unsuitable for wines probably won't solve the problem and that Oswaldo thinks is the problem with some (many? most?) South American wines.

I have no way of knowing if even this moderated claim is true, but I think it is worth addressing rather than simply piling on.
 
Ignorance and logic is a powerful combination.

But you all catch my drift, despite the imprecision.

My bias may stem from irritation with South American wine, but the insight that height does not equal might could apply, to a proportionate extent, to all situations where altitude is used to compensate for inadequate (or low) latitude.

Jeff, 100m is too midgety, but if you raise that to 300m, the answer would be almost 100%.
 
Donald Hess owns the world's highest vineyard, Altura Máxima, 3,002 meters (9,847 feet), at his Chaminé estate in Cafayate (Salta province, Argentina).
 
I can buy altitude as a mitigating factor in ripening. This 10000 foot vineyard is at 26 degrees south. Flip that north and we're talking well south of Cairo (and the Moroccan border!) Just as I can also buy the climate-mitigating factors of being surrounded by water (Canary Islands) in the face of being prety darn close to the equator (relatively speaking) at 28 degrees north. I guess that leads to the varying roles light vs. heat in the ripening process, where everyone will make the argument that proves the point that their palate approves of...

Cheers,

Kevin
 
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