A hot year, but with cooler climate wines, Argentina’s 2024 vintage

Warm in temperature, yet cool in character is how many of Argentina’s winemakers are summarising the 2024 harvest — which, yet again, presented unusual characteristics in the face of climate change. Amanda Barnes reports. “It’s been a hot year, but a truly great vintage — with wines showing the freshness of a cool year,” sums up Edy del Popolo, who produces Susana Balbo Wines and PerSe, of vintage 2024. The winter and spring had two important differentiating factors — for better and worse. Firstly, the unusually high level of winter rain and snowfall offered producers a much needed windfall to top up the depleted water reserves that were at a 30-year low. But the winter and spring was also ravaged by an unusually high occurrence of Zonda winds. The Zonda — high-altitude foehn winds which can run at over 100 km/hr — bring hot, sandy winds which can damage delicate spring buds. “Throughout the entire month of November there was a true marathon of Zonda winds!,” continues del Popolo. ...