Neuquén newcomers
While there are still a few old vineyards in Neuquén, this region is defined by its youth. Towards the end of the 1990s, and with the support of the provincial government, a huge planting project began. According to Wines of Argentina, over the past 15 years more than 1,400 hectares of vineyards were created. ‘ It was a bid by the government for a different activity to oil and gas, which is the economic driving force of the region,’ says winemaker Marcelo Miras, who was the project’s lead adviser.
Before too long, on the flat lands of San Patricio del Chañar, about 50km northwest of General Roca, wineries such as Schroeder, Secreto Patagónico and Patritti sprung up, as well as two of the best known names of Patagonia in the international market: Bodegas del Fin del Mundo and NQN – the latter now renamed Malma. Miras was the winemaker for these two wineries until 2015. ‘ The main challenge, and the reason I was interested was starting something from scratch; designing the vineyard and also the wineries,’ he said. According to Miras, there are no fundamental differences between Río Negro and Neuquén. ‘ In both cases it is a continental, semi-desert climate,’ he explains. ‘ But a key difference is the inheritance of old vineyards that exists in Río Negro and that, for obvious reasons, does not in Neuquén.’
The other is the landscape. Río Negro, a valley created thanks to the Río Negro river, looks greener and more fertile. Viticulture there co-exists with orchards and the old, tall poplars which calm the heat in summer. Neuquén, by contrast, is planted over the barda (the wall of sand and stones that marks the beginning of the desert), whose influence is much more palpable. ‘All that changes the environment,’ says Miras.