Fifteen years ago, Paul Hobbs, one of California’s most celebrated winemakers, weighed an opportunity presented by a friend to modernize a winery in Mendoza, Argentina. His first reaction was to steer clear. “The wine there was oxidized and pretty well beat up,” he recalls.
He was right to worry.
 During his first trip to Mendoza, Hobbs, who had been an oenologist at Opus One and winemaker at Simi, found the industry in a shambles. Winemaking in Argentina had barely advanced beyond ancient techniques. “The wineries had no tanks, no modern-day crushers, no new barrels and they didn’t know about malolactic fermentation,” he says. Even worse, vintners there used outdated growing techniques that produced poor quality fruit. Hobbs fretted he would not be able to convince them to try contemporary methods, and that he would end up stomping the grapes himself.
Today Hobbs owns a vineyard and winery near Mendoza, which has become Argentina’s prized region for viticulture. Last fall he released the latest vintage of his label, Cobos, at $60 per bottle. And Hobbs is not the only North American to change his mind about South American soil. In fact, wine lovers from around the globe who are eager to invest in quality vine land are eschewing places like California, with its astronomical prices, and exploring the Andean cone instead. The transformation of this arid region into an international wine center in slightly more than a decade is nothing short of stunning. And, although prices for prime vineyard property are rising, land is still a relative bargain for foreign investors.
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