I’m guessing you won’t feel sorry for me when I say that I have truly, honestly, been drinking too much wine lately.

My head is blury and my senses flattened. I can’t find the oak from the vanilla and the peach from the honey. This is not in the guzzle ‘em back and skip around town style of over-drinking, of course. This has consisted in guided tastings of top labels, a handful of bodega visits/day, evenings on comfy couches with friends who bring their own labels, and meals with winemakers; and it’s mostly been in the name of research.

I knew when I agreed to spend a few weeks with a friend who also runs two wineries in Mendoza that there’d be plenty of buen vino. Things went to another level, however, during our trip up in Cafayate where I was digging around to get to the bottom of the Torrontes boom, on assignment of course.

An incredibly aromatic and full-bodied white grape, Torrontes has reached unheralded heights way up in the high-altitude wineries of Salta Province.

Why? How? Argentina makes white wines? Who knew? Hence my investigation.

Over coffee with Marcos Etchart, we discussed the hows and whys of this. Don Marcos, also known as ‘el gordo’ and a bit of a flaky and lowkey guy who happends to be in business with the most important wine dude in the world (Michel Rolland), says it’s because of the amplitud termica - the huge temperature differences between night and day. At 2000meters above sea level, our little torrontes has risen to the stars, he says.

The chief winemaker at El Esteco says wineries up here see the big T as their future. The number-two guy at Bodega Lavaque tells me T’s going to be the next pinot grigio.

We tried T from the west side of the valley, organic T, T from rocky soil and sandy soil, T that’s been in oak, T that’s delicate and T that’s awesomely refreshing.

So back now at our base bodega outside Mendoza, we assembled an illustrious group to help us through a tasting, including two enologos and a agronomist. One was too green, one too floral, another we deemed ‘barely drinkable’. In the end, to find out our winner you’ll have to stay tuned for my story. I particularly liked one of them, but on a chilly late winter night, who really wants to be tasting a refreshing, full-bodied white wine, even for the sake of a story?

After eight bottles on Thursday night, I was happy to put the T to rest and get back to everybody’s favourite vino, Malbec. I’ve got a case en route to our home in Bariloche that I’ll bring out in January and relive memories of the days of T up north.

In the meantime, it continues. At lunch yesterday, we started with mulled wine on the porch. Then a white and then a rose and then a red, all from bodegas across the street. Smartly, I didn’t finish a single glass. Last night, gathered again in our base bodega, we made our way through another few bottles. Enough already!

Oh shoot - here comes Fernando with my lunch. And on a sunny Sunday afternoon, how could I possibly say no to my all-time-favourite malbec, made from the vines right here in front of me, vines that surround me while I sleep, that lead me to breakfast each morning, and that are just good, pure and classic? Okay, maybe one more glass…..