Argentina might be the world’s fifth largest wine producer – yes, it surprised me too – but many of the radical changes in winemaking techniques, and the corresponding improvement in quality, that have swept through France, Italy, Spain and the United States in the last few decades, have largely passed Argentina by.

Until recently, at least. Through the twentieth century Argentinean winemaking functioned in viniferous isolation, producing vast quantities of inexpensive plonk for local consumption, wine that wouldn’t stand a chance in the competitive export market, if they even bothered to try.

Recently however political stability and the prospect of cheap land has attracted a slew of foreign investors and their accompanying band of traveling international oenologists and viticulturists who often work two harvests a year, one in each hemisphere.

One of these investors is Domaines Barons de Rothschild of Chateau Lafite who have formed Caro, a joint venture with a local producer, Nicolas Catena of Mendoza, the country’s wine capital at the foot of the Andes.

The other evening I drunk a bottle of Caro 2001 and what a delight it turned out to be. Soft and accessible, it showed lovely dark berry flavors – think blackberry and cherry – accentuated by touches of punchy spice, I assume from the malbec in the blend. Still fresh, with fine balancing acidity and well integrated tannins for a solid structure, it is a gem of bright fruit and flinty minerality. In a blind tasting I would peg it as a very good Bordeaux.

It retailed for $40 on release but this vintage is now listed by Wine-Searcher with an average price of $85. The current release, the 2005 is young and fresh and fruity but with none of the polished sophistication of its elder relative – an exuberant adolescent next to the avuncular and urbane uncle. But give it time, give it time…..