What We've Discovered About Vino in Buenos Aires: The Basics
Vino Vagabonding will be different in each city and country we visit, but below are a few helpful pieces of information we've learned so far about VV in Buenos Aires:
- The founding producers here are Catena, Luigi Bosca, Rutini, Trapiche and Norton. These are akin to the Mondavi's and Beringer's in Napa Valley and are great wines to start with.
- White wine is called vino blanco
- Red wine is called vino tinto (NOT "vino rojo," like we assumed.)
- Since many Malbecs are made to be consumed young, we're already seeing 2010 red wines on the shelves. This shocked us a bit since the current vintages in Napa Valley are 2007 and 2008
- You can get delicious bottles of wine at restaurants, boutique wine shops and grocery stores for about $25-$50 AR pesos, or about $6-$13 US.
- Unlike the U.S. where wine shops carry many wines from multiple countries, the four wine shops we visited here are stocked almost entirely with Argentine wine. There wasn't anything from neighboring Chile, and only a few sparkling wines from California and Europe.
- You can drink wine (or beer) in any public park. In fact, its weird not to. Now we can definitely live with that!
- You CANNOT bring your own wine into restaurants. Bummer.
- The seasons in Argentina are opposite those in U.S and Europe, so harvest each year starts around March rather than September.
- Words to know: viñedos- vineyards, envasado por- bottled by or in, vendimia- grape harvest, altura- altitude and bodega- chateau/wine-producing house.
We'll keep adding to this list as we continue our Vino Vagabonding through Argentina...especially when we're in Mendoza for the Vendimia!
Want to know more about aging Malbecs? See what Laura Catena has to say in this article .
