Torrontés

Torrontés is Argentina's signature white, and it is not one grape but three closely related ones — Torrontés Riojano, Sanjuanino and Mendocino. Riojano is the finest and the one normally meant. DNA analysis has shown all three to be natural crossings of Muscat of Alexandria with Criolla Chica, the old Mission grape brought to the Americas by Spanish missionaries, which makes Torrontés a genuinely New World variety rather than a European import.

The Muscat parentage is obvious in the glass. Torrontés is intensely aromatic — rose petal, geranium, orange blossom, peach and lychee — and smells sweet enough that the bone-dry palate comes as a surprise to most people on first encounter. That gap between nose and palate is its defining characteristic.

The best comes from Salta in the far north-west, and specifically from Cafayate, where vineyards sit between 1,700 and 3,000 metres — among the highest in the world. The altitude matters enormously: intense ultraviolet light thickens skins and builds aromatics, while cold nights preserve the acidity that the grape would otherwise lose in a desert climate at that latitude.

It is a difficult grape to make well. Excessive skin contact or late picking produces a bitter, soapy, heavy wine, and Torrontés has a well-earned reputation for being unpleasant when handled carelessly. Made properly — picked early, pressed gently, fermented cool — it is fresh, floral and precise.

It should be drunk young and cold, and it handles spicy food better than most aromatic whites.