South American wines have been in the news a lot lately. These inexpensive, yet often high-quality wines are winning people over and each year they continue to improve. Wines from Argentina, in particular, are quite popular.

From The San Fransisco Chronicle:

Even the big, beefy Malbecs, made from Argentina's signature grape, seemed to have dropped a degree or two of alcohol and received what I am tempted to call a French polish.

Indeed, so marked was the transformation of Argentine Malbecs that it inspired the guy in charge of promoting Argentina wines in the United Kingdom to challenge me to choose a range of Pinot Noirs to put up against them in a blind tasting. What this proved was that it was not too difficult to tell the Pinots from the rest, but the Argentine wines were often surprisingly similar in quality and texture.

Chilean wines are popular in the U.S., as well, though the country is not as prolific as Argentina in terms of production - yet. Vines have enthusiasatically been planted to the point where the government has announced a vine-pull program.

The Chilean winescape is quite distinctive - indeed, many viticulturists regard Chile as the single most privileged place in the world to grow vines. Phylloxera has never struck here, perhaps thanks to the protection of the Andes to the east and desert to the north. Most vines are therefore ungrafted and were planted simply by sticking cuttings in the fertile ground...

In general, Chilean vineyards are subject to hardly any vine pests and diseases, and none of the hail that perennially plagues Mendoza.