Argentine Wine Review – Callejon del Crimen Petit Verdot, Finca La Luz

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Bradley

I have known the people at the Finca La Luz winery now for many years, having found their wine at a small trade show at the Clairidge hotel back in 2007. I remember thinking to myself that I had almost never heard of a 100 percent varietal petit verdot being made, but that it actually made sense agriculturally that petit verdot could do well in Mendoza because of its characteristics.

Like Malbec, Petit Verdot (meaning “little green” in French) never really tasted that good in France due to the terroir. Petit Verdot is a very late ripening grape and late ripening grapes, if they are not as sturdy as Cabernet, do not ever get to the sugar concentration that they need to make pleasant tasting wines and end up tasting “green”. This is where the little green name comes from since Petit Verdot, having to be harvested too early because weather changes would have otherwise killed it, came out with vegetal flavors.

In Mendoza, fortunately, the dryness of the region and extremely consistent weather along with the high altitude have created many good Petit Verdot. The best in my opinion is the Callejon del Crimen Petit Verdot from Finca La Luz.

Finca La Luz is literally impossible to find. If you are driving around in Valle de Uco, looking for a winery to do a wine tastings, do not try to find this one. You will fail. But if you can hire a driver and get out there with frequent nextel radio communication, you are in for a treat. The finca is surrounded by the Andes, which are no more than 10 km away, and tower over you, reminding you of their part in this whole terroir thing.

And it is this, I believe that give the Callejon del Crimen Petit Verdot such favorable characteristics. It has a distinctive chocolate flavor and jammy fruits are in the nose and mouth. This wine is very big and rich and can easily age for 8 to 10 years.

For more info on the winery… and maybe even directions to find it… you can check out the Finca La Luz website here.

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Argentine Wine Review – Dona Paula Estate Malbec

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Bradley

One of the first wines I fell in love with in Argentina, all the way back in 2004, was Dona Paula Malbec. At that time, Dona Paula was barely known as a brand and Argentine wine in the US market was virtually unknown as well. I remember at some of our first wine tastings people commenting to me that Chile had some great wine and had I ever been wine tasting in Chile. I tried to contain my annoyance by simply focusing on educating people on the fact that Argentina has been producing wine for much longer than Chile, produces higher quality wine, and produces emblematic varietals like Malbec, Bonarda and Torrontes that are not found in other countries. While Chile does have Carmenere…. ahem, the list ends there.

Back in 2004, when I was considered a crazy person for leaving the real estate booming USA, I found the Dona Paula Malbec at the Azafran restaurante in Mendoza. My friend and one of our first sommeliers, Leandro, introduced me to this wine as a great example of the typical fruit forward and friendly Malbecs of Mendoza.

This wine still has a sentimental value to me, because I view it as one of my gateway wines to delving into the wine business. It is entirely possible that I romanticize my tasting experience with that wine (as I romanticize nearly all wine tastings in Buenos Aires or Mendoza) at that time, but I feel that as Dona Paula has grown to be one of the powerhouse wineries of Argentina, that their wines grab me and seduce me a little less than they did before.

Now Dona Paula Estate Malbec still does have some fantastic characteristics… nice red and black fruits with a slight hint of herbs, a deep purple color and decent roundness. I have a feeling even as I write this that my first tastes of Malbec will always be the best for me and that surpassing that experience will be near impossible. All the same if you find Lady Paula on a list at a restaurant here in Buenos Aires, you could do a lot worse.

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How To Deal With Summertime Rain in Buenos Aires

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Bradley

Many many people decide to visit Buenos Aires during the summer months here, because they like warm weather. Well, it is certainly warm here! (Nearly 100 Fahrenheit yesterday with astounding humidity). But what most people touring Buenos Aires don’t know is that in summer time in the Southern Hemisphere (December, January and February, just to be clear), Buenos Aires is prone to rain.

And not just a little rain… it has been known to rain several inches in only a few hours, causing flooding in certain parts of the city. Why? Well, Buenos Aires is over 400 years old and is built on a river bed (basically). What this means is that not only is there not adequate drainage for when it rains hard (and it rains REALLY REALLY REALLY… REALLY hard here sometimes), but the ground tends to be already saturated with water, leaving very little room to drain more off.

So, in certain parts of the city, like the intersection of Juan B. Justo and Santa Fe (also known as Puente Pacifico), and in the Bosques de Palermo, you will find giant puddles for days that don’t evaporate fast because its humid all the time!

Here is what you can do if it rains hard:

1. Call taxis at least an hour in advance. When it rains here, it usually pours, and that means that portenos all get into cabs because they hate getting wet! There will be significant delays but an hour should do it.

2. Pay attention to the weather forecast. It’s pretty easy to predict rain in Buenos Aires in the summer, so look at the weather report online.

3. Wear rubber flip flops. Your feet will certainly get wet when it rains, and fortunately, it is warm rain during the summer in BA, and so this will save you walking around in soggy shoes. And we are totally fine if you show up this way to one of our fine wine tastings in Buenos Aires. We totally understand having to adjust to the rain!

4. Do things that are close and in your neighborhood. If you know its going to probably rain on a certain day of your stay in Buenos Aires, plan on visiting the sites close to your hotel or lodging.

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Get Beautiful for BA with ‘Fancy Fingers and Ladygardens’

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Sarah
Have you just returned to Buenos Aires after a exhilarating trip around the diverse landscapes of Argentina? Maybe you discovered the high altitude beauty of Salta in the north, trekked and trawled the cool icy terrain of Patagonia in the south or relaxed while sipping your way through an Argentina wine tasting in Mendoza. Whatever you did, whatever saw, you have surely returned a less ‘well-kept’ version of yourself than when you left.
So ladies (and men too, if this is what you’re into), if you are feeling a little less than pretty right now, this Buenos Aires fuzz-free beauty tip is for you. There is no need to return home/continue your journey looking like the yeti from beyond, just because you were worried about the possible language barrier causing you to lose more than just your pride. Sarah and ’Fancy Fingers and Ladygarden Waxing’ are here to help you return to your former beauty without a hair out of place. Excuse the pun.
The lovely Sarah, a British-born expat and owner of Ladygarden’s, offers a top quality waxing and beauty services in Buenos Aires for both tourists and locals. Professionally trained in beauty (more specifically waxing, manicures and pedicures), she decided to start her company Ladygardens after noting a distinct lack of decent waxing parlours while traveling around South America, including here in Buenos Aires where she also went through ’some pretty horrific waxing experiences’ . With no re-used wax,  no boundaries (I am referring to language here, however Brazilians and even the men’s ‘c,b&s’ aren’t out of the question),  and no need to be shy! Sarah’s wicked sense of humor will put you right at ease, so you will hardly even notice the sting. Before you know it you’ll be a true Buenos Aires glamour puss, pedicured, manicured and ready to go once again!
For more information visit her website: http://www.ladygardens.net/
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New Argentine Wine Products

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Bradley

Yesterday, while I was preparing for one of our wine tastings in Buenos Aires, we received a surpise package from the Cava La Carmela winery in Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza. Diego Menendez sent us some of his characteristic Hom Sparkling Wine in new “XS” bottles for us to sample this week. We were ecstatic, because these new mini bottles now allow us to drink Hom on so many more occasions. It was the perfect wine for me to take to the Rosedal garden and the Palermo Parks this afternoon. These petite bottles are great for drinking outside in the summer, because they only hold 187 mL, so the wine is gone before it gets warm! It is also an acceptable amount of alcohol to drink at lunchtime :)

Hom Sparkling is a unique blend of 70% Chardonnay and 30% Chenin Blanc. Chardonnay is the most well-known white wine in the world. It is grown in many different countries and also has great success in Argentina. It is grown on over 6,000 hectares of land in Argentina. The majority of Chardonnay comes from the provinces of Mendoza and San Juan. It is also grown in Patagonia. If you taste green apple or pear in the Hom, those fruits are characteristic of the Chardonnay grape. It is a very important grape for Sparkling wine production. Chenin Blanc, the other grape in Hom, it is another grape that is originally French, like the Chardonnay (and Malbec!). It is also grown in South Africa. There it is called Steen. Chenin Blanc is used in the Hom to create a drier expression in the wine and contribute fruit characteristics. Chenin Blanc’s high acidity makes it a great grape to use in Sparkling wines.

The ideal serving temperature for Hom is four to six degrees Celsius. Enjoy the miniature Hom with sushi at lunch, or grab a whole bottle to share with friends.

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Argentine Wine Review – Carinae Torrontes, Carinae Bodegas y Vinedos

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Bradley

For the average wine drinker in Great Britain or The United States, Torrontes is a white wine varietals relatively undiscovered, but here in Argentina it is something else! Considered Argentina’s flagship white wine, for many of the locals and tourists, it is love at first sight, or I should say more appropriately, at first smell and first taste. Throughout numerous Buenos Aires wine tastings, I have witness with my own eyes even the most hard-core red wine fans be swayed by this seductive white grape. I have personally adored Torrontes ever since I was introduced to it whilst studying at wine school…even more so when I aced a whopping twenty five mark question about Torrontes that was in my final examination. The only one in my class able to do so! Pat on the back for me!

Anyway, enough of congratulating myself, who I really should be congratulating here, is the small Argentinean boutique winery CarinaE. French wine and astronomy loving couple Phillip and Brigitte Subra moved to the fertile lands of the traditional winemaking region in the Mendoza River’s Highlands in 1998. There they began to produce their quality wines of Carinae Vinedos and Bodega (named after the Subra’s favourite southern hemisphere star constellation) in 2003 along with the supervision of Argentina’s legendary winemaker, Michael Rolland and his team.

Carinae produce a number of excellent varietals such a the ever famous Malbec, as well as Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon but what I’m interested here is their Torrontes 2011, especially as it has recently been awarded at 90 point by Robert Parker making it the second highest rated Torrontes in Argentina at the moment. Hurrah!

carinae torrontes carinae bodega y vinedos

Carinae Torrontes vines are settled in the outstanding high altitude wine region of Cafayate, Northern Argentina. Long sunshine hours and optimal temperature differential between night and day allow the 50 year old vines to produce fruit of the highest quality, with excellent ripeness and expressive complex aromas.

I found the aromas of this light lemon-green wine slowly slinked out of the glass, filling my nostrils with bewitching, delicate aromatic flowers such as Jasmin and Honeysuckle, followed by a exuberant nose of white peach, lychees and a hint of grapefruit on the finish. As all good Torrontes, its sweet honeyed aromas deceive the drinker into believing that this will be a wine full of sticky residual sugars. Not so.

Dry, refreshing and light. As many Torrontes have the ability to be on the rather viscous side, especially if they are harvested at low altitudes, it was a delight to experience Carinae Torrontes 2011. As soon as it entered my mouth, I was struck by its delicate body, which is complimented by its complexity along with its clean and fresh characteristics. Again, there was an eruption of stone fruits; white peach, apricots and grapefruit but it was overlaid by a lovely hint of grassiness, while the finished tailed off to a stony minerality that left me felling utterly refreshed…and craving a degustacion of aromatic, spicy fish Ceviche to pair it with!

With a tiny production 7000 bottles per year, I’ll be racing you to the vinoteca to get my hands on Carinae’s Torrontes 2011 before it’s sold out!

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Argentine Wine Review – Bodegas Nanni Tannat

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Bradley

Now the Tannat varietal is one that many of you may not have heard of. It is originally a French varietal (like the vast majority) and gets its name from its high tannin content. It is actually the most tannic grape out there. Ok, so a tangent on tannins: Tannins are one of the 4 main components of wine, the other 3 being sugar, acid and alcohol. When a wine is said to be “well balanced”, this means that those 4 components are in harmony, making the wine pleasant.

What makes tannat tough is that it already comes basically out of balance, with too much tannin. What does it mean to have a tannic wine? Well the easiest way for me has always been to think of the skins or seeds of grapes themselves, and think about the roughness that you feel in your mouth, the astringency, when chewing the skins. That is tannin. In tannat, the tannin can be so strong that it overpowers other aspects of the wine and leaves you feeling as if your mouth has been wiped out with steel wool. Yikes!

In a good Tannat, of which there are many, the terroir of where the grape is grown and the winemaking practices will calm this aspect down. The technique of micro-oxygenation was actually developed using the Tannat varietal because of the high tannin level. Micro-oxygenation aims to soften “hard tannin” and make wines that are smoother and suppler. Basically, tannins start out as harsher and more rough and astringent and over time, through the natural process of oxygenation in tiny amounts through aging, become softer. This process is called polymerization in chemistry, which is when a single unit (a single tannin in this case) hooks up with many more (“poly”) units of the same time to form a very long repeating unit.

Whew.

That is all to say that the Nanni Tannat from Cafayate, Salta, has great balance for a Tannat. Keep in mind it will still have a huge mouthfeel and must be drunk with beef or pork, but it has a luscious deep blackberry flavor, with rich, thick and slightly aggressive texture that keeps your lips smacking. It’s color is crude oil black, and aromas of black fruits and spice are present. Try this wine for something off the beaten path and if you are ever going to Uruguay, where tannat is the national grape, you should try a few to see the range of what can be made.

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Argentine Wine Reviews – Bodegas Nanni Torrontes

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Bradley

As I wrote about on Saturday, during my visit to Almacen Secreto in the neighborhood of Colegiales, Buenos Aires, I had a bottle of the Nanni Torrontes 2011. I always get excited when I see very small production wines on wine lists around the city of Buenos Aires. As you may have read in our previous posts, wine lists at restaurants in BA tend to be boring, dull and non-adventurous. The reason for this is that the big wineries like Catena, Zuccardi, Trapiche, Bianchi and others will actively buy “real  estate” on wine menus, give restaurants chairs, place mats, awnings, and even loads of free wine in order to dominate the market.

So a restaurant that has lesser known brands on its menu is taking a real chance as they are sort of shunning the big wineries and big distributors and “going on their own”.

Bodegas Nanni is a small, organically certified winery (one of the few in Argentina) that makes a range of high quality wines. They are located in the Cafayate Valley in Salta, where the highest altitude vineyards in the world are. Their vineyards average about 1750 meters above sea level which is about 6000 feet.

With only 8cm of rain per year (this is just over 3 inches) the dryness of the region is profound. This dryness combined with the altitude are two reasons why their Torrontes is so good.

A super transparent, barely straw yellow color, this organic Torrontes has a fresh orange blossom aroma with a hint of Jasmin and lemon, and in the mouth has gorgeous apricot and grapefruit flavors, crisp acidity and nice length.

We had the Torrontes with a goat cheese provoleta (provolone) which was a good combination, although this type of cheese is a bit strong for Torrontes. Slightly better combinations would be sushi, fishes, melon wrapped prosciutto, and pretty much anything with apricots.

For more info on Bodega Nanni wines or for visiting the winery in Salta, visit their website here.

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Buenos Aires Restaurant Review – Almacen Secreto

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Bradley

There are so many “closed door” restaurants in Buenos Aires these days and so many restaurants in general to pick from that one has to really pay attention to discerning characteristics.

At Almacen Secreto (the translation from Spanish would be something like “Secret Pantry”) in Colegiales, Buenos Aires, has several discerning characteristics.

First, when you find the restaurant, from the outside it does not look promising, and even upon entering it is sort of bland and not exciting. But go through to the back where their huge outdoor seating area is, full of gorgeous trees and plants and very friendly Siamese cats, and you have found one of the best outdoor dining areas in Buenos Aires. It is secluded, secret and pretty. You have plenty of space between tables and the stars and moon to keep you company. Perfect for summer dining.

With the menu, things get better! We started off with a provoleta de cabra (goat cheese provolone, grilled till crisp on the outside and gooey in the middle… (drool)) and a traditional Argentine “locro” to share. There are not many restaurants that offer locro, let alone good locro. Locro in case you don’t know is a very traditional Argentine stew, more typically from the north of the country from provinces like Salta, made with a mix of beans and meats, stewed for hours.

What is great about Almacen Secreto is that they have these regional delicacies like locro. They divide their menu into north, center and south, and have regional dishes from each place.

My main dish was a bondiola de cerdo (pork tenderloin) with a plum sauce. Delish! I also tasted their lamb which was awesome and they even had seco de llama (llama meat) on the menu, another traditional dish from the north of Argentina.

As if things could not get better, they had a FANTASTIC wine list. Literally this place, a tiny, family run establishment, has one of the best wine lists in Buenos Aires. From Salta they had Bodegas Nanni (which I will write about in tomorrow’s post – they make organic wines), El Porvenir de los Andes, San Pedro de Yacochuya, and Colome. From Mendoza their notables are Aconquija and Xumek, and from Patagonia, Humberto Canale and Bodegas del Desierto. I was truly impressed by this wine list as I don’t think I have seen anything so adventurous (nearly all the wineries were boutique Argentine wineries) in Buenos Aires. I have seen longer wine lists with more “prestigious” wine and older vintages, but these guys were clearly thinking about the type of message they wanted to delivery with their wine list.

We did not have dessert, but we were given a nice little shot of very cold chocolate liqueur… also delicious.

The service was perfectly adequate, and the price, with two bottles of wine, four entrees, and two appetizers came to 135 pesos per person including tip (about 32 dollars), a very reasonable price.

Especially if you are looking for an alternative to steak, pizza and pasta and if you are a tourist visiting Buenos Aires who wants to experience local cuisine and dishes from the different regions of Argentina, I can highly recommend Almacen Secreto. You can find them on their blog here.

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The Best Selling Wine Online Is From Argentina

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Bradley

… and its a Cabernet! What?!?

Isn’t Argentina the land of Malbec? Yes, Argentina is still the land of Malbec, don’t worry your pretty little head. But wine.com’s announcement of their top 100 list is both awesome and slightly shocking.

Awesome in the sense that we are super glad that an Argentine wine is the best selling wine on the largest online wine retail website in the world… shocking in the sense that it is a Cabernet.

Maybe Cabernet has a future in Argentina? Of course it does. The Tilia Cabernet from Bodega Esmeralda has both a great expression and a great value. Wines and Spirits magazine gave it 91 points and it retails for 9 dollars. I have tried this wine and it is certainly a solid Cabernet with plenty of fruit and enough tannin to stand up to the hearty meats that Argentines are known to eat. But 91 points? Hmm.

Not that there is anything wrong with the wine whatsoever, especially at that price. And yes, it is a great value at that price.

In total Argentina put 7 wines on the top 100 list from wine.com, a good showing in this author’s opinion.

What I am wondering is when Bonarda is going to make a better showing on lists like this. It is such a killer varietal when done right and when it is from the right region, I see no reason why it can’t be a huge seller as well.

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