Amanda Barnes

Author: AB

  • Q&A: Charlie Arturaola

    IMG_1570Written for Wine-Searcher.com

    Uruguayan Sommelier Charlie Arturaola was picked as Wine and Spirits Communicator of the Year in 2012 and stars in wine film El Camino del Vino among other TV appearances. He’s renowned for his bubbly personality and for having one of the top palates in the industry. 

    What do you see when you look in the mirror?

    I used to see a wine taster! I feel like the Robin Hood of wine these days. My mission until the day I die is that I need to bring better quality wine to young palates to open their senses and find out that you don’t need to spend $200 on a wine or buy a Grand Cru to say it’s a good wine. There’s a lot of good wine out there for $5 to $10.

    Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like?

    My childhood was hard. My wife tells me not to say that… but my mother died very young. I didn’t end up in an orphanage, my father was such a great person in terms of trying to keep us together that he sent me to my Aunt’s house, which was very rigid and regimented!

    My sister did a PHD in Biology and I got really into fermentation and bacteria, I was always into photosynthesis as a kid. My grandmother was great in the garden. I would escape from my Aunt to go with my grandmother to plant the garden! We’d plant tomatoes, parsley, lemon trees… you name it!

    I suffered for not having my mother, but it pays back because after hours of British school, I learnt my languages and French. I lived in a very multi-cultural neighbourhood in Uruguay.

    It was very limited in terms of coming from working class in the very hard times of Uruguay in the 70s or 80s… The only thing you want to do is survive and so I went to Europe when I was 19 and that changed my life – it opened my eyes.

    (more…)

  • Chile Through a New Lens: Photographer Matt Wilson

    Syrah smashWritten for WinesofChile.org

    A world-renowned photographer is portraying Chile’s wine world in a new light. Former rock and skateboard photographer Matt Wilson might be the bad boy of wine photography, but his emotive pictures are certainly turning heads and gaining him accolades along the way.

    The winner of the Born Digital Photography Wine Award 2012, has a refreshing approach to wine photography which moves away from staid barrel room portraits and tired landscape shots, instead focusing more on the characters of wine, the color of the landscapes and he frequently gets a winemaker to smash a bottle of wine against his head.

     

    What’s the difference between photographing wine and rock ‘n’ roll? Not that much it turns out. “Wine is a lifestyle, and rock and roll is a lifestyle!” says Matt who also travelled the world with Hip Hop groups like The Roots, Mos Def and Method Man. Matt likes to photograph animated subjects though, and he does admit “musicians tend to be more animated than your average winemaker.”

    (more…)

  • Grape Expectations

    Grape Expectations

    Many people in the wine industry are returning to more artisanal and hand crafted forms of winemaking. You don’t need pavilion sized wineries and limitless funds to make great wine – just good taste and some common sense. Amanda Barnes learns a few tricks of the trade to make superb wine the simple way.

    grapes

    For Wine-Republic, February 2013 

    As you tour around large winery upon large winery you can sometimes become deluded into thinking that winemaking has to be an industrial process. Rows upon rows of enormous tanks end up looking like a fleet of steel robots and the nomadic story of a grape’s journey can sometimes get lost in translation amongst all the machinery.

    Making wine is actually a very natural and simple process, so simple that you can in fact do it in your bedroom. Wine fanatic and tour guide Victoria Mermoz started making her own wine in her bedroom two years ago. When a friend was going to throw away some premium samples of grapes from La Rioja, Victoria decided to take them home and see if she could make her own ‘vino’ without any training, fancy machinery or chemicals.

    Hand squeezing each grape into a big water bottle, she left them to ferment in their natural yeast. She left the cap off the bottle a bit so that it could get some oxygen, but not too much either, and gently tipped the bottle up and down for a ‘pump over’ twice a day. If the temperature was too hot, she’d put the bottle in her fridge for a while. “I gave it three weeks for fermentation,” she says. “I tasted it everyday to check that it was not too sweet.” When she decided it was ready, she squeezed out the juice using a mesh fabric to separate the skins, put it into bottles to rest, waited a couple months and voila! Perfectly drinkable wine.

    (more…)

  • Young Wine Writer of Year Award 2012: Runner Up

    Young Wine Writer of Year Award 2012: Runner Up

    My entry to the Young Wine Writer of the Year Award (UK) which placed as Runner Up.

    The True Face of Harvest

    DSC_2212

    Carlos wiped the dripping sweat from his brow. His stout index finger brushed his right eye, and the vinegar he had doused on it stung the crease of his eyelid. He winced and rubbed his grimy shirt against his damp forehead, cursing the wasp that stung him an hour before.

    It was 10.30am on a mid March morning in Mendoza, and already 38 degrees centigrade. They still had at least three hours of picking to do. At the very thought of it, Carlos’s neck exuded more drops of salty sweat down his spine.

    The cuadrillero [leader of the grape pickers] walked past him and rasped a brash cough in his direction – a reminder that he needed to pick up the pace. Carlos had been a grape picker for 36 years, but now at 46 he was starting to slow down a bit. He felt a pang of jealousy at the half dozen extra chips the younger pickers were collecting by the end of each day.

    As he slid his hand behind the next bunch of grapes he felt for the stalk, used the knife to sear into the edge of it and tore it off as quickly as he could, pulling a few leaves and the grape cluster into the bucket. The leaves crunched and disintegrated as he pulled them back out. He knew the cuadrillero wouldn’t accept any more leaves in his bucket, and he was already on tender hooks after getting caught by the authorities last week. That had been a bad day… Carlos blushed at the memory.

    (more…)

  • A Worker’s Paradise: Public Holidays in Argentina

    public-holidays-in-zimbabweChristmas is, as Andy Williams sang, the ‘most wonderful time of the year’ because to the majority of us it means a couple well deserved long weekends. The idea of getting extra time off work, which doesn’t involve precious holiday leave, frankly makes it quite ‘wonderful’, especially for those living in countries with stingy holiday leave entitlements (take out your violin for people living in China and the Phillippines who only get 5 days annual leave!) In Argentina too there is elation at this ‘holiday’ season but with 19 public holidays a year, a day off work is not an unusual occurrence…

    Since her election in 2007, President Kirchner has added 5 bank holidays to the already bulging list and that now means the country tops the charts for the most public holidays in the world. To add to these you have regional holidays within each province and every profession has their own unique day off during the calendar too: student’s day, teacher’s day, plumber’s day, shop assistant’s day… The list goes on, but here’s a scaled down version of holidays in Argentina for 2013 and how they are celebrated:

    (more…)

  • Q&A: Susana Balbo

    Q&A: Susana Balbo

    Susana-Balbo-Malbec-Label-Malbec-Grapes-10001762-1355882115Susana Balbo is one of the most influential winemakers in Argentina. She produces wine under her own label, Dominio del Plata, and is also a consultant to a number of wineries in other New World countries. Amanda Barnes interviews her.

    What was your first memory in wine?

    My first memory is not actually mine, it’s told by my parents. In my family, wine is in our roots and in our culture. In my childhood, the beverage for kids was water with a drop of wine to taint the color. So my parents gave me a full glass of water with a few drops of wine, and it seems I liked it as a 3-year-old. They say they looked to the side and I was taking the bottle to pour a full glass of wine!

    What do you see when you look in the mirror?

    I feel comfortable with myself, so I am seeing a woman in her 50s who has crossed a very long way and works a lot – many hours a day. To be an entrepreneur, you have to work hard. But I am very pleased, I am happy.

    (more…)

  • Argentine Architects Trailblazers in Winery Design

    Argentine Architects Trailblazers in Winery Design

    Bormida & Yanzón, who celebrate their 40th anniversary this year, have been highly influential in determining the look of Argentina’s wine estates.

    It’s not so long ago that Argentina’s wineries were all made of traditional adobe walls (mud and straw) in oblong constructions. But in the past decade, the architectural firm Bormida & Yanzón has introduced “localized” style concepts and created some of the most visually appealing wineries in the country.

    Deeply functional and contemporary, the designs focus on incorporating the landscape of the main wine region, Mendoza.

    Prior to the 1990s, Argentine wineries used the Pampas (fertile lowlands) as their stylistic icon and largely ignored the rugged Andes mountains that served as Mendoza’s backdrop. However, since the arrival of ample foreign investment in the region and the launching of new projects to create showcase wineries, a lot of innovative thinking has gone into winery architecture.

    “We relate our projects so intimately with the landscape because winemakers always remark to us the importance of enhancing the perception of the qualities of our vineyard landscape,” explains Eliana Bormida, who spearheads winery design in the firm.

    (more…)

  • El gran roble

    Como casi todo en la industria del vino, el uso de barricas fue descubierto por accidente. Antes de la era cristiana ya se usaban barricas como contenedores para transportar lo que fuere: desde aceite y vinagre a pescados, clavos… y vino. Para embarcar el vino desde los países productores a los consumidores, se lo colocaba en recipientes de roble y era así como atravesaba el mar. Las barricas de roble eran más livianas que las vasijas de barro, no perdían vino a pesar de ser porosas, eran económicas y se podían apilar y rodar – justo lo que se necesitaba.

    Recién en tiempos romanos se comenzó a apreciar el efecto del roble en el vino; fue así como esta madera revolucionó el mundo de la vinificación.

    (more…)

  • Q&A: Marcelo Pelleriti

    Q&A: Marcelo Pelleriti

    Marcelo Pelleriti is an Argentine winemaker and rock fan. He makes his own wine under an eponymous label, and is head winemaker for Bodega Monteviejo in Mendoza as well as Château La Violette and Château Le Gay in Pomerol, France.

    What do you see when you look in the mirror?

    That I should drink more wine to get younger. Not to excess, but I have to drink wine every year to maintain my youth.

    What’s your first memory to do with wine?

    When I was five I helped my grandfather pick grapes. He had a big house with vines all over the roof and he used me to pick the grapes in the smaller gaps. We’d put the grapes in big sacks, then crush them with our feet to make ‘vino patero.’

    (more…)