Apr 08 2010
Alta Vista Winery
Depending on your perspective, Alta Vista Winery is either one of the great successes of the globalization of the wine industry, or one of the forbears of a coming apocalypse of standard wines being produced everywhere.
Alta Vista is owned by the Edonia Group, which is based in France and produces wine in France, Hungary and at Alta Vista in Argentina. The d’Aulan family (majority owners of Edonia) saw the great potential in Argentinean wines during a trip to South America in the early 1980’s and after acquiring Alta Vista have focused the production of the winery on Malbec and Torrontes which are the two most successful native varietals in Argentina. In many ways, it is impossible to separate wine from Argentina from Malbec. Not only does not other wine producing county craft Malbec of the same quality, Argentina has not been able to consistently produce world class wine outside of Malbec itself.
Alta Vista itself is a huge operation, even on the international stage. It makes close to 1 million cases of wine per year (by comparison Mondavi makes about 6 million) and it is reported that it is the largest producer in all of Argentina. Given such huge production levels it is impossible to simply suggest that any wine from Alta Vista is a good one. However, given their French owners (and therefore influence) it is often the case that their single vineyard wines receive the most attention and care. They truly believe that each of their vineyards imparts a different quality to the wine and when sampling them side by side it is impossible to disagree. If you need to select a wine from Alta Vista, purchasing a general Malbec in good vintages (like 2007) will certainly work well, however in worse growing years you may be advised to either look elsewhere or spend the extra money to purchase a single vineyard wine which generally speaking, would be more consistent.
Generally speaking, you can find a good example of their basic Malbec at almost any good wine store with prices likely to range from $12-$20 depending on the year and the relative size of your local market.
If you’ve tried a Malbec from Argnetina, this is a great place to start because you will be able to taste differences in both vintages and vineyards hopefully giving you a good idea what Malbec can create when handled well.
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