Why You Should Be Drinking High-Altitude Wines

You’re on a third date at a fine restaurant—white tablecloth, candlelight, Bossa Nova playing softly in the background—when that all-too-familiar panic hits: the sommelier hands you the wine list. You offer a canned question or two to fake oenophilic savvy, and Tinderella nods and smiles sweetly from across the table. But make no mistake, Jack—she’s sizing you up like a competition hog at the Iowa State Fair. Can he pronounce Pouilly-Fumé? How much is Casanova going to spend? Is he a man who makes decisions with bold conviction—or with timorous hesitation? It’s hard out here, fellas. 

Fortunately, I’ve got a foolproof trick for navigating such high-stakes tableside reckoning: scan the wine list for high-altitude regions. Think Etna in Sicily, Salta in Argentina, or Puente Alto in Chile. Wines from sky-high terrains are elegant, powerful, and pair gorgeously with luxury fare like ribeye, salmon, and duck. Best of all, the prices usually land squarely in that sweet spot between stinginess and simpiness.

When the somm returns with your bottle and pours the taste, swirl your glass and nonchalantly offer a remark about “minerality,” “finesse,” or “petrichor.” The more esoteric your descriptors, the better. You’re on a roll, king, but now comes the clincher: you need to convincingly explain over appetizers what exactly makes high-altitude wines special.

For an expert take, I spoke with Thibaut Delmotte, the master vintner of Colomé Estate in Salta, Argentina. Outside of a lone vineyard in the Himalayas, Colomé boasts the highest vines in the world. “The intense ultraviolet light at high altitudes yields grapes with deeply concentrated tannins and aromatic esters,” Delmotte explained. “And the dramatic diurnal temperature swings (hot days and cold nights) supercharge freshness and elegance.” Colomé’s Altura Máxima Malbec, wine grown at 10,000 ft. is liquid poetry as sublime as a Borges stanza. 

If you’re still anxious about selecting the right vintage, rest easy—we have you covered with a list of superb high-altitude wines.

The foreboding mountains and deserts of Salta, a Argentinian province near the Bolivian border, lend the region the nickname of “El Inpenetrable.” Bodega Colomé has several vineyards in the shadow of Salta’s snowy peaks, but their most remarkable plot is Altura Máxima, at over 10,000 ft., above sea level.

Grapes ripen slowly under searing UV rays, yielding wines of preternatural color and intensity. The Altura Máxima Malbec marries graceful elegance with uncanny power—like Diego Maradona in his prime. As for whites, the Altura Máxima Sauvignon Blanc is a melody of citrus, minerality, and mountain herbs—flavors as sharp as a white laser beam and as clean as glacier water. The Hess family, Colomé’s owners, also comissioned a museum on the estate devoted to James Turrell, the avant-garde American artist whose works are like sculptures wrought in light. 

Amalaya’s vineyards stretch across Cafayate, a valley in the Andes that takes its name from the Quechua term for “box of water.” The warm days and chilly nights of the high desert produce wines with well-articulated fruit flavors and exquisite freshness. Their flagship red, Amalaya Gran Corte, is a blend of Malbec, Cabernet Franc, and Tannat—imagine jam made from Andean blackberries sprinkled with fresh black pepper. If you visit Amalaya, take a detour to Quebrada de las Conchas, a national park of rust-red cliffs and rock formations as surreal as an alien moonscape.

Long before Malbec became a mainstay in swanky North American steakhouses, Nicolás Catena was perfecting viticulture where no sane viticulturist dared: 5,000 feet above sea level, in the Andean foothills of Mendoza. Catena’s crown jewel, the Adrianna Vineyard, produces some of South America’s most coveted wines, earning near-perfect scores from major critics and comparisons to Grand Cru Burgundy. The Catena Zapata Malbec Argentino is the color and fragrance of violets—inky-purple perfume with whispers of graphite and garrigue. While Catena built its name on powerful reds, don’t sleep on the whites. The White Stones and White Bones Chardonnays sparkle with notes of wild flowers and stones—the smell of fly-fishing in a crystalline stream in Patagonia. 

Don Melchor’s vines flourish in pebbly, alluvial soil, irrigated by glacier melt from the Andes. The hot days and cold nights of Puente Alto stress the grapes to perfection—preserving acidity while deepening phenolic complexity. The flagship Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon is as majestic as the snow-capped peaks framing the vineyard. It’s an olfactory parade of blackberries, violets, cedar, and graphite notes carried by fine-grained tannins. The Cabs have earned multiple 97–100 point scores from Wine Advocate, James Suckling, and Wine Spectator—the wine world’s equivalent of an A+ from an elite university.

In the hierarchy of Sicilian viticulture, producers like Planeta and Tasca d’Almerita are like made men—respected, influential, and not to be trifled with. But as with the Cosa Nostra, there can only be one top boss, a singular Don. And that is Donnafugata.

The storied producer has vineyards across Sicily, from the balmy coast of Marsala to the sunbaked hills of Contessa Entellina, but their highest-altitude grapes grow on the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna. The dominant grape in Fragore Contrada Montelaguardia is Nerello Mascalese, an ancient red varietal characterized by notes of cinders, burnt cherry, wild herbs, and raspberry candy. As for whites from Etna, Sul Vulcano Etna Bianco, made from Carricante grapes, is an eruption of citrus, flint, and sea spray. 

After several jaunts to Sonoma and visits to storied vineyards like Donum and Kistler, I fancied myself something of a northern California wine snob. But when I tasted Francis Ford Coppola’s Archimedes, I sprang up from my bathtub like a crazed Greek polymath and screamed “Eureka!” at full volume. (I later received an email from my landlord regarding noise complaints.) 

Archimedes is sourced from grapes grown above the fog line in Sonoma’s rugged hills. While Cabernet Sauvignon is the main character, Malbec, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet Franc play applause-worthy supporting roles. Archimedes punches with notes of black plum, cassis, Christmas spices, and tobacco—a wine as barrel-chested and swaggering as a young Marlon Brando. This is my favorite wine to uncork whenever I whip up steaks at home.