In our monthly meeting, my editor asked whether, as Argentina is known for its red wines, there was any mileage in a story about whites. “Absolutely!” I shouted down the WhatsApp microphone.

Late May is when Argentina’s official harvest report comes out, crunching the numbers on how many kilos of grapes were picked, which varieties, and where they were cultivated. Good old nerd stuff. Then we receive the critics’ reports: humans revered for their outstanding palates and ability to recall flavors and aromas from one year to another, weather reports, how wines age, and humans who annually drop by to try our wares — then score them for the world to see.

The National Wine Institute (INV, by its Spanish initials) kindly sent over its “Final Production and Harvest Report 2025,” which gives us useful figures. Argentina is home to 1,230 bodegas (wineries), of which 893 are registered producers, and more than one billion liters of wine were produced as of May 18. In this figure I proudly include my 12,000 liters of fermented grape juices comprising eight labels.

It’s certainly a long process that requires plenty of patience. Harvest in Jujuy’s warm southern valleys might start on January 1, while Trevelin in Chubut wraps up, grape clusters shrouded in ice, in mid-May.

The report is thus organized by province and variety — and a few grape names I’ve never heard of popped up. Gibi! How did you sneak up on me, Gibi, surpassing four million kilos in Mendoza? Also known as Hebén, Gibi originated in North Africa as a table grape. It turns out winemaker Fernando Ravera is making a natural wine under the Turbio line with Gibi grapes from a 1970-planted vineyard in Fray Beltrán, Mendoza. It’s........

© Buenos Aires Herald