South America, the New Wine Continent. Where in 2023 the amphora finds a home
The year that is about to leave us has been full of challenges for the world of Amphora Wine. However, one, in particular, on the horizon of 2023, seems to announce itself with more determination than the others: after the USA and Australia, there is a “New Wine Continent”, South America, where winemaking in terracotta is known and appreciated.
In 2016, Artenova’s terracotta egg-shaped jars arrived in the cellar of Luiz Argenta, a winery in Flores da Cunha, a municipality in Brazil in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the most important Brazilian wine-growing area (terracotta eggs in the photo by Carlos Ferrari). The Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and Trebbiano Romagnolo varieties are all made in Artenova amphorae. “The minerality of the grapes in contact with these terracotta vessels, creates – we read on the Luiz Argenta company Facebook page – an exotic and surprising wine”.
2022 was also a year of new orders from Uruguay (classic 300-litre jars), in particular from Montevideo, where the first requests for terracotta jars came to Artenova in 2019. Chile and Peru have also shown an interest in Amphora Wine in recent years. In Peru, Artenova’s Impruneta clay has found its home in the Pisco Valley, an important wine-producing area in the central-southern region, specifically in the cellar of the Bodega Murga company. With the vineyards modernized and the cellar technologies updated, for years now the Peruvian wine industry has experienced particularly favourable times.
On the horizon of 2023 important news for Amphora Wine also comes from Argentine viticulture, with its two regions, that of San Juan and the Mendoza area, which alone represent almost the total national production of the country.
