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area, as does the venerable firm Errázuriz. Today, Casablanca is the source of the best Chilean Chards, many the product of French and American investment. Chilean-born Agustín F. Huneeus, who became a major figure in Napa as president of Franciscan, cofounded the Veramonte estate in Casablanca in 1990. Almost simultaneously, Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle, granddaughter of the creator of Grand Marnier, founded Casa Lapostolle and hired Michel Rolland, the world’s most famous flying oenologist, as consulting winemaker. They chose Casablanca for the Chardonnay vineyards, planting on a series of steep hillsides. Chilean viticulture has been largely a valley-floor affair, but Lapostolle’s example is being followed by others. This past April, on the verge of the harvest, I spent a morning tromping those hilly vineyards with the wry, multilingual Rolland. Long after his neighbors on the flats had harvested, he plucked and tasted grapes, deciding which parcels to pick first. This hillside farming is expensive, requiring drip irrigation, but the results speak for themselves.

Jacques and François Lurton, scions of the great Bordeaux family, have wineries on both sides of the Andes. Their Gran Araucano Sauvignon Blanc is probably Chile’s best—no surprise, since their family produces some of the finest white Bordeaux. Fortunately for the brothers, the plane trip between Santiago, Chile, and Mendoza, Argentina, is just about an hour.

The low-rise, canal-laced city of Mendoza is the center of fine-wine production in Argentina. The canal system, which dates back to the original Indian inhabitants, extends throughout Mendoza Province, bringing runoff from the Andes to the orchards and vineyards of the arid region. The “terraces,” or plateaus, that rise toward the eastern slopes of the Andes in a series of climactic gradations provide successively cooler microclimates that can essentially be matched to the ripening requirements of different grapes. Vines have flourished here since the late 1500s, but the dawn of modern viticulture might be dated from the arrival of the French firm Moët & Chandon, which established a huge sparkling-wine facility in 1960. In the mid-1990s, Chandon founded a still-wine domaine, Terrazas de Los Andes, refurbishing an 1898 winery and planting new vineyards. Its Chardonnay vineyards occupy the highest terraces, above three thousand feet.

Catena Zapata, with its new Jetsons-meets-the-Mayans winery, traces its roots back to 1899, although its modern era begins in 1982, when third-generation Nicolás Catena had an epiphany while visiting the Robert Mondavi winery in Napa and decided to take the family’s plonk factory upmarket. The three Chardonnays produced here, starting with the ten-dollar Alamos bottlings, represent exceptional value. Bodega Norton, founded in 1895 by an Englishman to satisfy the Argentine thirst for cheap, oxidized reds, has undergone a similar transformation and now produces the best Sauvignon Blanc that I encountered in Argentina.

At prices ranging from ten to twenty-five dollars, Chilean and Argentine Chardonnays represent a great value these days, in part because of low land and labor costs. They also seem to have more natural acidity than other New World examples, which makes for more refreshing summer drinking. You don’t have to picture the snowcapped Andes in the background as you sip them in the dog days, but I know I will.

THE FORGOTTEN WHITES OF BORDEAUX

The white wines of Graves have an image problem. Bordeaux is practically synonymous with red wine, which accounts for about 85 percent of its vast production. Made from Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon, white Bordeaux remains something of an enigma to the average American consumer—less glamorous than the reds or the Chardonnay-based whites of Burgundy.

Situated to the south of the city of Bordeaux, the Graves appellation is the home of most of the best Bordeaux whites. Connoisseurs have long sought out the ageworthy whites from Haut-Brion, Laville-Haut-Brion and Domaine de Chevalier. I’ve been collecting them just long enough