Posts belonging to Category Cafayate

Winemakers are somewhat like doctors. There is a lot of talent in the pool but the great ones are uncommon and especially hard to find because there aren’t any bad winemakers. Think about it. Who ever says “I have a horrible doctor” or “she is an awful winemaker”. There ain’t no sech animal. [ed. here is a doctor right now who knows the difference - and where he belongs - in front of Kenneth-Crawford "winery" in Buellton]
Family docs (like big house winemakers) are never stars. We need them and value them but all we are looking for is reliability over time, no diagnostic mistakes, and the ability to make a good referral when one is needed. The grind-it-out primary care guy keeps the whole thing going but the specialists are the stars. In wine their equivalent is the boutique winemaker. If you ever needed a surgeon or a specialist, then you will recognize how everybody you know wants to send you to their knee guy or shoulder cutter who is always “the best” in his field. How do you really know? How can every specialist – or every boutique winemaker – be the best? (more…)

Hopefully, you have read the posts on bodega touring in Lujan and Maipu and Valle de Uco, dining and wining in Mendoza, and Argentine wines found and purchased in LA. Here is the list of the best wines tasted by the tBoW team in Mendoza. We have tasted other Argentine wines found in SoCal but they are not covered in this post.

Where possible, I am providing the importer, distributor and retailer in LA or anywhere. Lets’ get to it. (more…)

You know how it is. You spend a couple weeks in Argentina including a week just in Mendoza staring at the Andes [ed. the view from Vistalba] and tasting wines and you find stuff you really like. You have to decide “do I haul some back or have some shipped?” If you want to ship a case from Argentina via DHL it will set you back $240/case. So add $20/bottle to your U20 winners. Or you can join The Vines of Medoza wine club Acequia. The Vines has much of what you like on their impressive list and they ship for a lot less ( I mean a LOT LESS) than DHL.
[ed. alert: The Wall Street Journal published an article March 29 2008 on The Vines vineyard business.] (more…)

For the busy readers of this blog who just want the purity of essence, here are the highlights in brief: (1) when touring Mendoza bodegas you need a driver and reservations; (2) the bodegas we visited in Lujan de Cuyo and Maipu made excellent wine, and (3) Valle de Uco is the must-see region. The photo is one view from Achaval Ferrer in Lujan de Cuyo.
One of the highlights of any trip to Mendoza is touring the bodegas (wineries, schmendrick). This is not Napa, or Sonoma or Paso, or Bordeaux, or Piemonte, or Languedoc. It is most like Languedoc in that the bodegas are spread out few and far between. And everywhere there are vineyards. It is Argentina and has quite possibly the world’s finest growing conditions for producing great wines.
We visited the following bodegas: Tempus Alba, Achaval Ferrer, Carlos Pulenta (Vistalba), Salentein, and Andeluna. We were set to taste at La Azul but we dawdled so long at Andeluna (meal o’ trip) that we blew that one. I crawled through an opening hole in the entry wall and went on the grounds to take a couple photos of the very humble bodega. (more…)