Mendoza, and the wine grown in the shadow of Aconcagua

On a map of Argentina, Mendoza province looks an unlikely place for wine. It lies in the far west, against the Andes, in a region so dry that it is classed as desert, with only a couple of hundred millimetres of rain a year. Yet it produces the great majority of the country's wine, and its vineyards stretch for miles along the foot of the mountains, green against the brown hills.

The secret is water from the mountains. The Andes here are the highest in the Americas, and in spring and summer the snow on their peaks melts and runs down in rivers. For centuries, people have channelled that water onto the land, and the city of Mendoza, with its avenues of shady trees, is itself an oasis built on irrigation.

The channels

Long before the Spanish arrived, the Huarpe people of the region were diverting the rivers into channels to water their crops. The Spanish, who founded the city in 1561, extended the system, and it still runs today. The city's streets are lined with open channels, the acequias, which carry water to the trees that shade every street: without them, the city would be bare.

Out in the country, a network of canals and ditches distributes the water across the vineyards, and the right to use it is carefully regulated. Many vineyards now also use drip irrigation, fed by the same rivers. In a sense, every glass of Mendoza wine is made from Andean snow.

Malbec, and altitude

The grape that made Mendoza's name is Malbec. It came from south-west France, where it was once widely grown around Cahors and Bordeaux, and it was brought to Argentina in the mid-nineteenth century, when the government hired a French agronomist, Michel Aimé Pouget, to develop the country's wine industry. In France, Malbec was badly hit by frost and by the phylloxera epidemic that devastated European vineyards, and it fell out of favour. In the dry, sunny climate of Mendoza, it thrived.

Argentine Malbec is typically deep in colour, rich and soft, with dark fruit flavours, and since the 1990s it has become one of the most popular red wines in the world. Mendoza also grows Cabernet Sauvignon, Bonarda and the white Torrontés, more associated with the north of the country.

What gives Mendoza's wines their character is altitude. Its vineyards lie between roughly eight hundred and fifteen hundred metres above sea level, and some higher still, which means strong sunshine by day and cold nights. The grapes ripen fully in the sun but keep their freshness through the cool nights. The best known districts are Luján de Cuyo, just south of the city, where many of the older wineries are, and the Uco Valley further south, where vineyards climb towards the mountains and newer wineries have been built in striking modern style.

A visit to the wineries, the bodegas, is the main reason most travellers come, and many offer tours and tastings, often with lunch on a terrace facing the snow-capped Andes.

Aconcagua, and the road to Chile

West of Mendoza, a road climbs into the mountains towards the Chilean border, following the route of the old trail across the Andes. It passes Puente del Inca, a natural stone bridge over the Las Cuevas river, coloured yellow and orange by the mineral springs that flow over it, beside the ruins of an old spa hotel.

A little further on is Aconcagua Provincial Park and the first view of Aconcagua itself, at nearly seven thousand metres the highest mountain in the world outside Asia, its great south face rising above the valley. Climbers attempt it each summer, but a short walk from the park entrance, to a viewpoint by a small lagoon, is enough to see its scale.

The tours

Explore Worldwide's Wine and Landscapes of Argentina's Northwest, thirteen nights, starts in Mendoza, with Luján de Cuyo, Aconcagua Provincial Park and Puente del Inca, then travels north through Barreal and El Leoncito National Park, Villa Unión and the red cliffs of Talampaya and Ischigualasto, Belén and the Quilmes ruins, to the high-altitude vineyards of Cafayate. Its departures are in March, May, June, September and November.

Travelsphere's Chile, Argentina & Brazil, thirteen nights, starts in Santiago and the port of Valparaíso, crosses the Andes to Mendoza, and continues to Buenos Aires, the Iguaçu Falls and Rio de Janeiro.

The harvest, the vendimia, takes place from February to April, and Mendoza celebrates it with a festival in early March. Autumn, when the vine leaves turn gold and red against the mountains, is a lovely time to visit, and spring, from September to November, brings blossom to the orchards. Summer is hot in the city, though the nights in the vineyards are cool.