High altitude wines

When it comes to wine, freshness, fruitiness and balance of acidity is all about height and soil, says decanter.com's Adam Lechmere

I haven’t visited Donald Hess’s Altura Maxima vineyard in Salta, Argentina yet, but when I do, I might take supplementary oxygen. At 3,111m, it’s the highest vineyard on the planet. In the search for the perfect vineland, Hess has upped the ante. Altitude is more important than latitude when it comes to cool-climate winemaking, wine producers will tell you. Only with height do you get the combination of intense sunlight by day and lower temperatures by night that allow grapes to ripen perfectly, while retaining the acids that give freshness – and it’s all about the freshness. Those golden chardonnays, laden with oak and fruit, that the Aussies seduced us with all those years ago are no longer in fashion. What we want now are crisp, zingy whites and fresh reds with lovely acid balance. The way to achieve that balance is to grow vines in regions with long sunny days and cool nights. The grapes soak up the sun and then close down at night; photosynthesis halts, sugar stops forming, and the acids that give both reds and whites their backbone are locked in.

If you plant your vines as high up a mountain as possible, you get an extra dimension to all those factors: nights are cooler, and sun shines with an intensity that ripens grapes in a totally different way. Added to that, soils at altitude are generally poor in nutrients – another vital factor in viticulture: a stressed vine produces more concentrated fruit than a vigorous one. But it’s the quality of sunlight that’s so important at high altitude, as Santiago Achaval, whose vineyards sit at more than 1,000m in the Andean foothills in Mendoza, Argentina, told me: ‘There’s less “air filter” between the sun and the vine. There is more intensity of sunlight in every part of the spectrum, therefore the photosynthesis process is not only more effective, but veers from herbaceous fl avours and turns to riper, red, blue and black fruit flavours.’

And as if ripe fruit flavours and perfect structure were not reason enough to seek out high-altitude wines, there is growing evidence that red wines grown at altitude have antioxidant properties: they thin the blood and protect your heart. Basically, plants synthesise the antioxidant resveratrol as a response to UV light. Eminent publications have published studies into the usefulness of red wine – particularly grown at altitude – in fighting heart disease.

Argentina and Chile are seen as high-altitude Nirvana, but across Europe and the Mediterranean winemakers are heading for the hills. Look for the dense, spicy red wines from Priorat in mountainous northeastern Spain and the wines of the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, grown at 1,400m and higher, in temperatures ranging from 42°C in the day to 10°C at night. Or search out wines from the Planeta family in Sicily, who are growing grapes in volcanic soil 900m up the slopes of Mount Etna. The Planeta carricante, with its crisp acidity, racy minerality and pure lemon, tart apple and white peach flavours, is one to aim (high) for.