February - Argentina Celebration
- matatkin
- Jan 20, 2023
- 2 min read
It's crazy, I was planning this tasting pre-Christmas, pre-World Cup and then low and behold Argentina go and win the World Cup. So this tasting is a little homage to them and their little maestro Lionel Messi. We won't talk about the football on the evening, it's purely coincidence but a happy coincidence.
In the olden days, we'd refer to Argentina as 'New World', but they've been growing grapes there since the Spanish explored in the 1500s, bringing a vines with them to create their wine. In those days, it was a volume game creating low quality wines with little or no character. When phyloxera hit European markets, the market collapsed and winemakers moved through Chile to Argentina. Michel Pouget was initially invited to Chile to develop the Chilean wine industry and he worked at the Quinta Normal de Santiago, in Santiago. He brought the first French varietals and the Chilean wine industry was created.
He was then invited by the mayor of Mendoza to found the Quinta Normal de Mendoza. The Quinta was a research centre and agronomy school (very similar to that of Chile) where noble French grape varieties would be introduced to Argentina. The most notable cultivar was, of course, Malbec which went on to become Argentina’s most famous grape variety and today’s most planted variety.
On the 17th of April 1853, the local government gave official approval for the new school and Pouget was appointed as Principal. This date has been taken as the day Malbec arrived in Argentina and is the day when World Malbec Day is celebrated. Still a volume game, but they realised that yields needed to reduce to improve quality. Then the 1990's arrived and exporting became a thing, the Peso crashed to help this market and before you know it, Argentina is a huge exporter of Malbec to Europe and the business is born.
30 years later, Argetinian wines are everywhere and created in a variety of different style. From fruit forward to lightly oaked, worthy of aging through to crisp and dry, there are so many options available to the wine lover.
After your Dry January finishes, we're gonna celebrate Argentina. Malbec, Torrontes, Tannat, Bonarda, Semillon & Merlot from every region. We've got a beautiful Cremant de Bourgogne on arrival and we've paired the wines to our cheese and charcuterie board to bring out the best in both!
Come along and get involved. Click below to register. There's a discount available for Wine Club subscribers.
Love you all!
Matt xxx
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