"We hurry to harvest, because we are afraid of another frost to come, in the middle of the harvest. A year like this, you can expect anything."

Marcelo Pelleriti, oenologist at the Monteviejo estate, described to AFP a season already "one of the most difficult in the history of vitiviniculture in the province of Mendoza". Where 78% of Argentine wine comes from.

Early frost, late frost, hail, extreme temperatures, dry soil and air... The vines have suffered, like two bunches of Cabernet Franc that Jose Mounier, cellar master, shows AFP: one mature and well formed, the other semi-atrophied, imperfectly developed, with heterogeneous berries, the result of frost at flowering.

Marcelo Pelleriti, oenologist of Monteviejo estate, on March 14, 2023 in Vista Flores, Argentina © Andres Larrovere / AFP

"Fewer berries means more work in bodega," he summarizes, referring to the increased care that will have to be taken in the selection of berries, between green, atrophied, etc.

In Monteviejo, the crop loss is expected to be around 50%. And again, the vast vineyard located between 1,000 and 1,200 meters above sea level is partly protected by antifreeze fabrics. But in places in the province of Mendoza, the losses reached 100%.

And on the scale of Argentina, the 2023 harvest, the final result of which will be known in May, will not exceed 15.4 million tons of grapes, according to projections by the National Institute of Vitiviniculture (INV).

That's about 40% less than a "normal" year, like 2021 (22.2 million).

The harvest at the Monteviejo estate, in the Valle de Uco, on March 14, 2023 in Vista Flores, Argentina © Andres Larrovere / AFP

"We can talk about the worst harvest in more than twenty years, maybe sixty...", worries to AFP Mario Gonzalez, new president of the Argentine Wine Corporation (Coviar), a member of a cooperative in another wine region, Rioja (northwest).

"The panorama is very complicated, which goes hand in hand with declines in the internal and external markets", for exogenous economic factors. "The equation is tightening on all sides."

The "Malbec dollar"

Because Argentina, which oscillates between the places of 5th to 7th producing country (far behind the trio Italy-France-Spain) was also coming out of two good commercial years, directly related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The domestic market (more than 70%) had benefited from confined Argentines opening more bottles.

The harvest at the Monteviejo estate, in the Valle de Uco, on March 14, 2023 in Vista Flores, Argentina © Andres Larrovere / AFP

The 2022 average is expected to be less than 18 liters per person per year, compared to more than 20-21 liters in 2020 and 2021, Gonzalez predicts. "It's going to have a big impact."

Not to mention a soaring inflation (94.8% in 2022) gradually eroding the purchasing power of Argentines. Which in any case are gradually but considerably drinking less wine than before, compared to a peak of 88 liters per person in 1977, according to INV data.

Worried, gradually losing places in the ranking of exporting countries (around 10th place), the wine sector has received a boost in recent days from Economy Minister Sergio Massa.

In search of a win-win, for wine, but also to bring in international currencies that the country lacks.

As it did in 2022 with soybeans, Argentina's flagship export product, the government, in a country subject to exchange controls, will apply a preferential exchange rate for wine exporters, more favorable than the official (210 pesos to the dollar), in order to stimulate exports. The "Malbec dollar", (in reference to the dominant grape variety in Argentina), as the media have already dubbed it.

The coming year will have its share of difficult decisions to make, whether or not to replant frozen seedlings, depending on profitability that has been declining for five years, according to Gonzalez.

Marcelo Pelleriti (l), oenologist of the Monteviejo estate, and Jose Mounier, cellar master, taste the wine from a barrel, on March 14, 2023 in Flora Vista, Argentina © Andres Larrovere / AFP

With a worried eye on the climate, because Marcelo Pelleriti is convinced: the sequences of frost or hail that "used to be more distant, five or ten years, return in a more repetitive way".

© 2023 AFP