Despite appearances there’s wine beyond Mendoza, Argentina’s principal region that accounts for the lion’s share of production, and garners most of the attention from trade and consumers in the process. Down south there’s Patagonia, which, between its sub regions, Río Negro and Neuquén, is home to about 4,500 hectares of vineyard. Read More...

Tags: Argentina, Mendoza, Bonarda

Remember the Renault 12? The small family saloon with the funny, ski-slope boot that has all but disappeared from Irish roads? Well, it still rules in Argentina, specifically the city of Mendoza, capital of that vast country’s eponymous principal wine region – as I had plenty of time to observe when stuck in early morning traffic on my way to the Luigi Bosca winery recently. Read More...

Tags: Argentina, Malbec

With regard to high alcohol wines the ‘big but balanced’ argument is one that I have never bought. So what if it is balanced? That only makes things worse, for there is no hot prickle of alcohol on the finish to warn you that this one’s a monster – you will have to wait until the following morning to discover that. Masses of fruit, masses of tannin, masses of alcohol, masses of oak, masses of mass. Sure, it is balanced, but only in the sense that an Olympic super-heavyweight weightlifter is balanced. What about a bit of elegance? Read More...

Tags: Argentina, Alcohol

Malbec has had an unfair, or at least a one-dimensional, press in recent years and I have been as much to blame for that as any other wine scribe. The common, and understandable, perception is that in its adopted home of Argentina it makes rugged wines that rely on strength and structure to make an impression, hewn as it were from the same block as some of her more robust rugby forwards. That is the stereotype and like all stereotypes it has only a passing acquaintance with the truth. Read More...

Tags: Argentina, Malbec