At a recent dinner party our host, a wine enthusiast, pulled out a white wine he'd selected to go with his King Prawn Pad Thai. Carefully ensuring I couldn't see the label and eager to test my wine knowledge following my enrolment in a wine tasting course, he set me a challenge - to guess what grape this wine was made from. My only clue being it was from Argentina.

Trying to remember all the steps in the "Systematic Approach to Wine Tasting", I looked at the colour of the wine - clear pale lemon. This only told me the wine was relatively young.

Step 2, I gave it a good swish round the glass and stuck my nose right in inhaling deeply. The aroma came as somewhat of a surprise, not the citrus/lemon smell I was expecting from a Sauvignon Blanc, or the mango and tropical fruits smell you'd expected from an Argentinian Chardonnay. The aroma was very floral, peachy and intensely aromatic and not quite like anything I have smelt before.

The wine was the same on the palate, intense with peach and apricot stone fruits, quite complex. I didn't have a spittoon and didn't want to spit on the carpet so I swallowed. The closest thing I could compare it to was a Voignier. I offered this as my answer knowing I was probably wrong, instantly I could tell by the smile on my host's face I was right - I was wrong.

The grape it seemed was "Torrontes" and it went fabulously with the King Prawn Pad Thai. That point aside, "Torrontes" I exclaimed, "what the hell is torrontes!?". 

It seems Torrontes is a grape that is uniquely grown in Argentina. The next day I decided to do some research. Apparently this grape makes up about 20% of all the wine sold in Argentina, but I'd never heard of it. What fascinated me the most was it was only produced in Argentina, with the exception of a few less successful attempts in neighbouring Chile. I'd always been led to believe that all grapes originated from Europe or North Africa. There are certainly no grape varieties native to Argentina or the Americas, so how did this grape get to Argentina without seemingly leaving any relatives in Europe?

As it turns out, a few years back a number of researchers thought it would be interesting idea to DNA test all the various grape varieties to see when they originate from. Not really relevant to this story but something else I discovered during my investigation is that Zinfandel famously grown in Californian, is the same grape as Primitivo from Southern Italy!  Anyway I digress. It turns out the DNA tests on Torrontes revealed that its origins are in the Eastern Mediterranean. How it got to Argentina still seems a little bit hazy, but presumably it was taken over by Spanish Settlers.

The DNA research goes on to reveal that there is 'high probability' that the grape is most likely a cross between two grape varieties. 'Muscat of Alexandria' originally from Egypt and these days mainly used for producing raisins, and a grape called Criolla.

It seems the Criolla grape is known for being disease resistant and able to withstand environmental stresses such as low water availability and high salt concentrations. Perhaps the sort of grape you might take with you if you were planning on settling in a new country with a potentially harsh and unpredictable climate! The Torrontes grapes thrives in dry and very windy conditions, loves high altitude and so is especially suited to the Andies mountains in Argentina. Some torrontes vineyards are excess of 1700 metres above sea level, significantly higher than Ben Nevis.

Torrentes must have been created by pioneering viticulturists looking for the perfect grape to thrive in this unusual environment, and produce great wine. This grape seems so highly adapted to its unique location high in the Andies mountains it is not viable to grow elsewhere.

Give this grape a try I suspect it will be the next big thing to emerge from Argentina following the success of Malbec.

Incidentally the wine at the dinner party was called Crios Torrontes 2009 Susana Balbo.