Author: AB

Lunching in Mendoza’s wine country: Ruca Malen

Ever since moving to the sunny and pleasant land of Mendoza, my favorite pastime has been eating in wineries. Yes, the mountains are awe-inspiring, the sunny days permeate your skin to warm your soul and the people all flatter you till your knees melt; but for me, it’s all about lunch…

Ruca Malen has been one of the top foodie destinations in Mendoza for quite some time and since winning Best Wine Tourism Restaurant (in the world no less!) last year, the secret is definitely out. Although when I went there for lunch the other day, chef Lucas Bustos revealed another secret about the restaurant, which is rather less discovered.

On most winery lunch dates (you’re just beginning to see the tip of the iceberg of how often I indulge in them) I’ll gobble up each course contentedly satiating myself in the thoughtful plays between texture, taste and colour. All the while, working out the wine pairings with my figurative devil sommelier on one shoulder and angel chef on the other. They whisper, babble and whimper to each other as they watch over me stuffing down another six courses, occasionally parping up to comment on a pairing out loud.

Ruca Malen has been on our radar for some time now, so when I went a month ago I thought that there was almost no stone left unturned in my experience of dining at Ruca. After a quick chat with Lucas though, he’d given my shoulder friends the proverbial slap with a wet fish and they were left belly-up and wriggling on the floor. It turns out we’d missed the biggest part of the menu concept!

As a former, and partially rehabilitated, literature student, it is an understatement to say I like a good story. And a good story is exactly what Lucas tries to weave into his tasting menus, whether you notice it or not. Admittedly I had not noticed the beginning of the tale, my stomach getting the better of me as I tore apart the fancifully decorated plate of quinoa, herbs, apple and nutty breadcrumbs. I reveled in the crisp, tart apple, and the aromatic herbs with the bright orchard fruit and refreshing acidity of the Chardonnay. What I’d neglected to notice though was that the scribbling under the food, aside from just looking like a nice map of Argentina and an explanation of the ingredients, was an account of the native tribes that inhabited the land and the food that they would forage for. From the West came the quinoa, harking back to the Incas in Andean lands; from the East the apple and fruit from more tropical climates; and in the centre the breadcrumbs (admittedly a bit before their time) from the wheat bowl of Argentina – the pampas. It was an edible map of the land before time!

(more…)

May 9, 2014
Keeping Cool in Casablanca

When imagining “cool climate” wines, what springs to my mind first is the image of soggy, wet vines and miserable days of drizzle that leave your head firmly in the clouds — and not in a good way. Spending the first 25 years of my life in England probably didn’t help that image.

But in Chile, as I sat lapping up the sunshine by a glistening swimming pool under perfect blue skies, listening to birds squawk in the palm trees of Matetic winery’s boutique hotel in Casablanca/San Antonio, I started to question my initial impressions of cool climate. It wasn’t cold here. In fact, it was positively balmy.

Casablanca might be a cool climate wine region, but visiting the area is not a frosty experience: days are filled with sunshine and warm lazy afternoons drinking copious amounts of wine as you tuck into fine Chilean cuisine. On this particular afternoon I was tucking into fresh and buttery potted crab with a glass of tropical fruit-filled Chardonnay, followed by a rosemary-crusted lamb fillet with a smooth, spicy Syrah. I couldn’t keep my top button done up, let alone keep my jacket on.

While the day time temperatures and sunny climes make Casablanca a perfect holiday destination, the cooler nights mean you won’t lose any hours of sleep and can still rest nicely with a big blanket — which is good news for both people and grapes. The big difference in temperature from the sunny, skin ripening days compared to the crisp nights is what makes these wines so racy. And in the morning when you do finally wake from a perfect slumber, a fresh fog lays over the valley keeping the grapes cool and not awakening them too rudely either. The sun slowly appears through the fog, and then we are back to sunbathing. I understand why grapes do so well here: they can rest at night, and get some color during the day. And that is the secret to the success of cool climate wines … maintaining the cool acidity while developing their color, sugar and flavor profiles in the summery afternoons.

(more…)

April 6, 2014
The plunging peso is like a Latin lothario

Written for The Telegraph, 29 Jan 2014

Argentina’s economy is not easy to write about. I’ve had to rewrite this article 15 times. Not just because of my shoddy writing, but because of the shoddy state of the economy.

When I started putting pen to paper at the end of December, the exchange rate was 6.5 pesos to the dollar, yet last week it hit 8.5 pesos. Every time I reopen my laptop the rate has changed. On the verge of yet another economic crash you might suppose? Obviously, it’s Argentina.

This is a fact faced by everyone, expat and local, and probably explains the nation’s curious financial habits. The fragility of the value of the peso makes it – as my local friend says – a ‘hot potato’ currency: “No one wants to have it in their hands too long”. The longer you sleep on it, the less it means in the morning. There’s no point making any crude comparisons to the reputation of Latino lotharios, but this temporal nature of monetary value does make life here a lot of fun at the beginning of the month.

The biggest economic lesson I’ve learnt since moving here five years ago is that you should invest in stuff. Stuff will always be stuff, whereas you can’t say the same for money. When payday rolls around, the shopping centres are swarming with people investing in furniture, household goods, food, even cars and property. My friends completed payment for a new big house recently by swapping a smaller apartment and a car with the other owners. There were a few thousand pesos thrown in to sweeten the deal but they were mainly to pay the commissions of the real estate agents. In business transactions it’s also common to accept canje, a payment in goods rather than money. It’s the stuff you own that counts, not the cash.

While this means your friendly neighbour will always come up trumps whenever you need to borrow something, it also means people hoard a lot of junk. You don’t need to step further than the roadside to see cars that resemble hunks of junk being propelled around in a puff of black smoke. Even with an exposed spoiler and two missing doors, an old car is still worth more than its weight in pesos.

The soaring inflation is denied by the government, much to the annoyance of the IMF. Government statistics say it is only 10 per cent, while unofficial estimates are closer to 30 per cent. This means that the largest bill on offer – the AR$100 peso bill – is now only worth £7, or £4.50 on the unofficial rate. This makes buying a beer in cash (AR$40) reasonable, but trying to buy a fridge-freezer in cash for example (AR$6,000 for a mid-range model), becomes far harder, requiring big pockets, a rainbow and a leprechaun.

(more…)

February 28, 2014
Argentina’s 10 Most Expensive Wines

Written for Wine-Seacher, 8 Jan 2014

You won’t see Argentina headlining wine auctions yet, but the world’s fifth-largest producer is beginning to make collectible wines. At this stage, buyers are more likely to have romantic reasons for embracing Argentina, though producers hope that wine investors may soon follow them into the market.

“Most of our clients that spend over $80 a bottle have either visited Argentina and fallen in love with the country or are married to an Argentine,” says Christian Rothhardt, founder of specialist Argentine wine merchant Ruta 40 in London.

Tapping into the tourist trade is an important factor in Argentina itself. The Vines of Mendoza tasting room in the historic city encourages visitors to taste wines from different producers, after which they can ship bottles home and subsequently send orders from the United States.

“The average price of our wines sold [here] is $45,” says head sommelier Mariana Onofri. “Once they have been here and experienced the great wines, they are confident spending more on Argentine wine in the future.”

That said, many of Argentina’s top wines are bought by affluent locals and wine-loving Brazilians on vacation. Visitors hunting out bargains are sometimes disillusioned to discover that the prices charged at the cellar door are higher than at home. Take, for example, one of Robert Parker’s top five producers in Argentina, Alta Vista. The 2007 vintage of its leading wine, Alto, sells at 600 pesos ($92) yet is listed on Wine-Searcher at an average price of $74 excl. tax. It’s not about ripping off tourists, either, as the same higher prices – and more – are charged in local wine stores and restaurants.

So, why are Argentine wines sold more cheaply 5,000 miles away than they are in the place of production? The anomaly arises because of the parlous state of the Argentine peso. At the time of publication, the official rate was 6.5 pesos to the U.S. dollar, while the black market rate was 10.3. It’s the official rate that’s used in exports.

Taking average worldwide prices as a barometer, here are the top 10 on Wine-Searcher’s list of Argentina’s Most Expensive Wines*. To be included, a wine must have been produced over five consecutive vintages and have a minimum of 20 different offers in our search engine.

© Viña Cobos | Paul Hobbs (R) in the vineyard with Vina Cobos’s co-founders Luis Barraud and Andrea Marchiori

No. 1. Heading up the chart at $190 is Viña Cobos’s Nico Cabernet Sauvignon, now known as Volturno. It’s an odd man out in a country where malbec rules but cabernet sauvignon is the pet grape of American winemaker Paul Hobbs, who uses it as the dominant variety in his highest-level wine. Up to 37 percent malbec is blended in for good measure.

“I think Argentina is the third-greatest region for cabernet in the world [after Bordeaux and Napa],” says Hobbs, who first came to Argentina to act as a consultant at Catena Zapata in 1989. He set up his own winery, Cobos, in 1997. “Hardly anybody knows about Argentina because it hasn’t paid much attention to cab itself, but now people are beginning to,” reports Hobbs.

Why is this wine able to net such a high price? “With this vineyard you are drinking a part of history, but history alone does not do the job,” says the winemaker. “It is a world-class standard and you can age this for 50 years.” It probably helps that Hobbs has his own California-based wine importation business and has worked for some of the industry’s biggest names in wine. Oh, and this wine fairly consistently gets 98 Parker points.

However, there’s potential for enormous confusion over its name. First released in 2005, early listings of the wine will show it as “Nico” – named after co-founder Andrea Marchiori’s father Don Nico, who was always “the first one out on the vineyard for the first pick.” Unfortunately for Hobbs, Laura Catena had launched her wine “Nico by Luca” three months earlier. After a couple of confusing years, Hobbs switched to using Don Nico’s middle name, Volturno.

No. 2. Viña Cobos “Cobos” Malbec. Hobbs strikes again, this time with the first wine he made at Viña Cobos in 1999. Like Nico/Volturno, the wine spends 18 months in new oak and the grapes come from Hobbs’s 80-year-old vineyard in the Mendoza sub-region of Lujan de Cuyo.

(more…)

January 13, 2014
Getting to grips with Argen-time

Written for The Telegraph, 17 December

The first wedding invite is a cardinal moment for every expat. My excitement at opening the envelope was palpable.

“You are cordially invited to the happy couple’s wedding party at 01.00 hours.”

No, that must be a misprint. Surely that’s a typo for 18.00 hours? Or maybe 21.00? But 1am, really? Welcome to Argentina.

Argen-time, as I like to refer to it, is a curious thing for even the most indefatigable expat. You need stamina, a penchant for sleep deprivation and a lot of caffeine to survive it.

The time on the wedding invite was no mistake, as the bride told me when I called in a mild panic to tell her about the misprint.

In Argentina, no one sits down for dinner before 10pm and weddings are the same. The church service is generally around 8.30pm, dinner at 10.30pm and evening guests arrive in the wee hours of the morning.

What you do before 1am to stay awake and vaguely presentable still befuddles me, and try to wrap your head around this: no one at the wedding will be drunk yet. Not even close. They’ll keep going till 6 or 7am when it all finishes with pizza, fancy dress and carriages after dawn.

Most other social events follow the same pattern: late starts, and even later finishes. Restaurants don’t open till 9pm, and no nightclub dares to open much before 2am. That’s not just the rule for youngsters either. When going to someone’s house for a civilised dinner – at whatever age – guests should always estimate that the given time actually implies at least an hour later. Punctuality is an awkward shortcoming and elasticity when it comes to timing is a virtue.

(more…)

December 20, 2013
Drinking Stars: Who invented champagne?

As the story goes, an old French monk, Dom Perignon, discovered Champagne completely by accident one day in 1697 – one of those beautiful mishaps that would change the world forever. After bottling his wine, he laid it down to rest for the winter and when he cracked it open the following year, he poured a glass and was surprised by this miracle product.

“Come quick!” he called to his robed colleagues, “I am drinking stars!”

And so Champagne was born, allegedly.

While Dom Perignon’s story makes good copy, there are a few hiccups in this French tale of accidentally-on-purpose. There is documented proof that Dom Perignon actually called this wine ‘devils wine’ because he felt the unexpected outcome was actually a curse. The volatile product would explode entire shelves of wine and was a dangerous nuisance. The the final bursting of this French bubble comes with the knowledge that the English had been making sparkling wine for at least 20 years before.

In December 1662, English scientist Christopher Merret in a rather less grandiose statement wrote in his book “Some Observations Concerning the Order of Wines“ that “our wine-coopers of recent times add vast quantities of sugar and molasses to wines to make them drink brisk and sparkling”
It turns out the Brits had actually been making sparkling wine on purpose long before Dom P got dizzy. In fact, the word for sparkling wine (mousseux) didn’t appear in France until 1718.

However, as with every story of rivalry between these neighbouring nations, the French have another story to claim the Champagne throne, although this time not in Champagne at all. In Carscasonne in 1531 some Benedictine monks started making sparkling wine called Limoux with the rural method by bottling it before it finishes fermentation and gives a little fizz to the wine at the end. This is the first documentation of bubbly wine, although the ‘champenoise method’ of doing a second fermentation in bottle, remains an English invention. For now.

So when did the beautiful star drinking story appear? That would be in a Dom Perignon advert in the 19^th century.

December 17, 2013
A rising star in Elqui

“They thought we were loco,” says Giorgio Flessati, winemaker at Vina Mayu. A common story for pioneers and winemakers who push the boundaries. And fifteen years ago anyone would have thought Giorgio and his cousin Aldo Olivier and co-partner at Vina Falernia were crazy for planting vines in Elqui. A land of extremes, Elqui Valley is on the edge of the Atacama Desert, has over 340 days of sunshine a year, almost no rainfall, can reach the high 30s during the day with some of the purest sunlight in the world – almost 10 times more solar radiation than in Europe.

These diurnal extremes would make winemaking impossible if it wasn’t for the polar opposite nocturnally: the temperature plummets, a soggy sea fog rolls in, and the vines wake up cool and moist. During the daytime you might be in a shorts and T-shirt, but at night you’ll need a blanket as Elqui is in fact considered a cool climate for wine. “Climatically it’s extremely cold and windy,” says Paul Hobbs, a flying winemaker who consults for Vina San Pedro who make wine in Elqui. “It has very cold nights and there’s a wind tunnel coming in from the sea.”

(more…)

December 17, 2013
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me… Luigi Bosca Icono!

Greedy as I am, I’m going to open a nice bottle of wine each day that leads up to Christmas. Today a bottle of Luigi Bosca Icono arrived on my doorstep – holidays are coming!

A fourth generation family in Argentina, the Arizu clan have been pumping out wine in Mendoza since the Italian immigrant family settled here in 1901. Pumping is probably the right word, as the winery still have a production of a whopping 6m litres. However Icono is a little more exclusive with just under 6000 bottles a year. But it certainly is a great bottle and will score major points as a Christmas present…

A Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon blend, Icono comes from 90 year old vines in the beautiful Finca Los Nobles property which looks over Tupungato volcano in the distance and the vineyard has a clay and sand surface with stony soil underneath. A handsome nose with great intensity, complexity and yet a feminine touch of violet. Rich dark fruits, a good bit of spice and a long finish are sure to set you off on a jolly start to the holiday season.

– Wine is for life, not just for Christmas

December 13, 2013
My night in with Angelica…

When you have a good wine in your hands, it can actually be very difficult to open it. I’ve been harbouring a special bottle of 10 year old Angelica Zapata Malbec from Mendoza for a while now and although I have no doubt the wine would keep for a couple more years (I can’t say the same for my childlike restlessness) with a few house moves lurking in the very near future I decided not to risk letting it spoil and make the occasion to just open it…

The Occasion: A Saturday night, like any other, although a bit more solitary. Alone at home and with no desire to move from my couch.

The Wine: Angelica Zapata Malbec Alta 2003, Bodega Catena Zapata

The Experience: Malbec can often have a rather wild purple tinge to it, but leave it almost a decade in the bottle and the purple calms down into a brickish red. When you first pour it in the glass the wine gives you truffled mushroom and old leather, give it a whirl and cracked pepper, soft rose petals and dark chocolate dust emerge. In the mouth the wine has smoothened out but has a mini roller coaster on the finish and leaves you with fruit on the tail end. Coming from a blend of their different vineyards around Maipu, Lujan de Cuyo and the Uco Valley this has the multi-layered complexity you’d expect, rounded off with a year in oak. This wine I decanted and drank with a good documentary and later with a friend and some carne al cuchillo empanadas: perfect contemplative but comfy mood to enjoy this wine.

December 1, 2013
Interview with Alberto Antonini

An interview with flying winemaker and international consultant, Alberto Antonini. Interviewed for Casa de Uco.

Why is the Uco Valley such an exciting wine region?

The location is by far the best valley in Mendoza. It’s where you get some very interesting calcareous spots and well drained soils, with warm days to ripen the fruit and cold nights to retain acidity – it’s the best for the freshness of the fruit. It’s very exciting now I understand the valley. Working with Pedro Parra (a terroir specialist) I understand why I like the characteristics there.

Do you remember making your own first wine?

My father was a teacher but I grew up on a farm, so I was making wine for fun as a hobby and had a passion for wine. The first wine I made was there.

The feeling? I was very happy. Since I was a child they were asking me what I wanted to be and I said I wanted to be a peasant and work on the land! Since I was 5 or 6 I said I wanted to be a redneck… If I wasn’t a winemaker I would like to grow apples.

I also have a lot of passion for music too but I don’t have talent to make a living from that!

I remember the first smell of the wines I tried, it was fascinating for a child. We made it in a very artisanal way. It was really a long time ago… it was 50 years ago…

How important is personal style in winemaking?

I don’t think it is… depending where the wines are from. If it’s a place that is very special you really do very little. I don’t want to affect the expression of the place. When people say less is more, I believe it is true.

To get to the point of doing less, you have to have the experience and confidence. I think it’s now I’m trying to let the grapes express their best. I don’t like it when people talk about a style of a winemaker, that’s when the wine has gone. The job is to do as little as possible.
(more…)

November 23, 2013