Currently I’m down in Argentina for the month of January. The first thing I did when I came down here was shoot straight for the wine store and buy a couple Malbecs. If you’re looking to expand your palate and try a bunch of different wines for fairly cheap, Argentina is a great place to start. Argentina is even a great place for new comers to wine to explore and begin to find what they like. That being said, you may not find the cheapest 90+ point wines down here as you might expect, but you will be getting 80+ wines for under 20 pesos (~6 USD) each.
Argentina is the home of the Torrontés grape. While it can also be found in Chile and Spain, Argentina is the largest grower and user of the grape for wines. This wine in particular is great for new comers because it is light and usually a bit sweeter. So if you are introducing someone to wine for the first time, this should be a good wine to start with.
Since I’ve been down in Argentina I’ve had the opportunity to try 4 of the Torrontés wines for a mere 32.5 pesos (~10 USD). Below I’ll give you the list of wines I’ve tried and a little heads up on what to expect from each of them, but keep in mind different people have different palates. Dan, my partner in crime down here often differs with my opinions.
- Reservado 2008 – 8 pesos (~2.5 USD) – This wine was very simple and didn’t do anything amazing for me, but was enjoyable. The nose was sweet, crisp, and reminded me of a very tart apple sauce. The mouth was totally a box of tiny tarts just poured into my mouth. I haven’t had them since I was a kid, but I very distinctly remember that taste when my grandma bought me some in a plastic case at Disney World. It manages to stay light while giving lots of flavor. I feel like this wine would go well with some shrimp. It’s a bit tart for my taste, but perhaps some of you out there like that. 80.
- Colon 2007 – 10 pesos (~3 USD) – This wine was if anything extremely interesting. The color was a very rich for a white wine. I would almost want to describe it as a light amber. The nose was unlike anything I had ever really had before. If you just brisked your nose past the glass, you got freshly sliced apples. If you were near the top of the glass you got a baked apple pie coming from a freshly cleaned oven. Once you stuck your nose straight in it, carpet cleaner! Now after letting it breathe for a bit, it kept the same nose on top, but sticking your nose in got you some interesting tropical fruits. The taste on this was very interesting. My friend Dan absolutely couldn’t stand it. I was intrigued, for some reason I couldn’t stop smelling and drinking this wine if for nothing other than the fact that I wanted to understand how they made it. The taste itself wasn’t all that great. It reminded me a bit of papaya. Drinking it, it coated my tongue like it was wrapping it up in a silk blanket. An interested mouth feel for sure. While I’m not sure I’d pick this up again, I’ll give this wine an 81 for keeping me interested.
- Santa Julia 2008 – 14.5 pesos (~4.25 USD) – This nose was quite tight. For taste, it has a slow entrance and doesn’t come on too strong, but slowly grasps your tongue as it comes up to the mid palate. The finish lasts after the wine leaves your mouth, but doesn’t linger on for too long. Unfortunately as far as describing the flavor I can’t give you much else other than just straight citrus. 80
- Quara 2007 – 13 pesos (~4 USD) – I think these guys have a cool label. It has a little llama right on the label, but we can’t judge wines by their covers. The color isn’t much of anything worth note. The nose initially was very tight and never really opened up. The overall mouth feel was okay. It has kick right up front, then it starts to settle on your palate and tighten up a little bit. For the finish it slowly runs off your as if it were rolling down your throat trailing the rest of the wine you just drank. The end hits you with a little bit of alcohol. If you like your white wine room temperature I have a feeling this will finish a little hot for you. Overall though I feel like this wine lacks flavor. With a wine such as the Torrontés, known for its higher sugars, I feel like there should be more flavor on this. This wine is tarter than the Reservado, too tart for the level of sweetness present leaving it unbalanced. I wanted this wine to be more than what is was but unfortunately I think I’ll have to leave this wine at 75.
Perhaps there are some other wines out there that do the Torrontès better justice, but we only spent 10 dollars try 4 wines. For those of you looking to learn more about Torrontès, I highly recommend checking Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV show on Torrontès here.
Hey Matt,
Great post! I hear interesting things about Bonarda wines from your current neck of the woods. Any chance we could get a review on some of those?
-Dan-