As you would expect from the land of the Tango Argentina produces full-blooded, seductive wines of spice and passion. Like their neighbours across the Andes in Chile, they produce excellent value, mostly red but increasingly white, varietal wines across all price points.

As the 5th largest wine producing nation in the world Argentina was long renowned for the quantity rather than quality of its wines. Since the 1990s Argentina has benefited enormously from the influx of investment and expertise - seemingly from every famous wine region in the world – combined with modern technology and better vineyard management and winemaking techniques. Apart from a couple of blips - notably the 1998 El Niño and the economic crisis of 2001-2 - it has been a heady rise even if a general unwillingness to reduce yields has meant that its progress has been slower than hoped. So far it has emulated Chile’s success but has not yet, by a long chalk, surpassed it. The next Australia? Only time will tell.

Planted with vines by the Spanish colonisers in the mid 16th century, it was the widespread immigration from Italy and Spain in the mid-19th century (and later France) that bestowed Argentina with such an eclectic mix of grape varieties. The country’s trump card has turned out to be the old Bordeaux variety Malbec which, outside of Cahors, has never really made its mark in its French homeland. In Argentina it seems to have found its spiritual home, producing intense, opulent wines with refreshing acidity and increasing sophistication. In the hands of top producers and in increasingly good (and high) single vineyard sites it is yielding some truly fine wines.