Just Visit our online store and find your favorites or some new Malbecs that you have not yet sampled. Order one to try everyday for dinner and send us your tasting notes- we will post them on the blog to share with everyone!
So over the last couple of weeks, we have gone over how to conduct blind tastings, general tasting techniques and now there is more fun to be had- sensory tastings! This is actually a really good way to start to hone what you smell with what you are able to cognitively recognize. How many times are you lured by the smell of movie theater popcorn, a baked cherry pie, fresh from the oven- you have a vast olfactory memory but at times it is hard to put it into words.
How many times have you said this smell reminds me of something but you just can’t quite put your finger on it.
So to test your olfactory senses- cut up slices of banana, orange, lemon, chocolate, cinnamon, cumin, or put mashed berries, tobacco, whatever you have ever thought you could smell in a wine and place them in a set of glasses and put your nose to work. You can also add a little bit of neutral alcohol (or as Mariana tells me, cheap wine) and it will make the aromas a bit stronger in the glass.
You can also invest in a set of essences from Nez de vin, but they tend to be a bit synthetic so it is always better to try and use natural ingredients when you can. Below is a brief description of how Michael, Mariana and I approach sensory tasting at The Vines Tasting Room in downtown Mendoza, Argentina.
And for some tips to help you out with Argentina’s emblematic varietals, the Torrontes, Bonarda and Malbec we have created the following. If you just happen to be in Mendoza or are planning a trip in the near future, make sure to come by the Tasting Room to try one of our guided sensory tastings, where one of our servers can explain all the finer aspects of how to taste and compare essences.
Salud!
Malbec is the craze in the US, with good reason, but now the Brazilian market is rapidly gaining ground and looking to the south to provide wines for its booming restaurant and wine scene. In the news, in addition to all of the articles about US consumption, Brazil has become captivated with Malbec and Argentine wines. For example, just in the last week these articles have profiled the significant increase in exports as well as dollar value which can be attributed to several different trends including a strong real, an increasing middle class, and attention to lifestyle pursuits.
An article in Bloomberg.com notes that the rise in the Brazilian real is making the purchasing power easier for Brazilians to stock up on top Argentine wines. They also mention that the increase in popularity is due to a combination of economic factors, the quality to price ratio, Malbec led growth, and lifestyle choices.
“Exports to South America’s most-populous country rose 49 percent in the first five months of this year from a year earlier to a record $15.8 million, according to a July report from Caucasia Wine Thinking, a research company based in Mendoza, the center of Argentina’s wine region. Sales to the U.S., the biggest importer, rose 19 percent to $97 million over the same period.”
They also mention The Vines of Mendoza as a way to procure their own wine.
At Vines of Mendoza, a company that sells and manages vineyards for private buyers in the Uco Valley, staff are studying Portuguese, Brazil’s official language, after the number of Brazilians visiting its two tasting rooms rose three- fold from 2008, company president Michael Evans said. Five of the company’s 79 landowners are from Brazil, up from one a year ago, he said.
“It’s become our second most important market in just the last year,” Evans said via e-mail. “We are seeing a huge influx of Brazilians.”
Behind the US and Canada, Brazil is rapidly consuming and importing more and more Argentine wines.
An Article in Wine Sur states: ” As regards Brazil, the third market in importance, exports have increased 49.1% in value and 23.5% in volume.
Another article in Wine Sur notes that the trend “is closely related to the fact that “Brazilian consumers are becoming more sophisticated and enjoy pairing their food with good wines. They look for greater complexity, always appreciating the fruit.”
The newspaper Jornal Valor of Sao Paulo featured The Vines of Mendoza’s Private Vineyard Estates yesterday appealing to wine enthusiasts, businessmen and investors. There is an increasing focus on the Argentine market for imports, investment, and lifestyle adventures. More and more wine enthusiasts are also hoping to make their vineyard dreams come to fruition. We have amongst our international set of owners, many Brazilians who visit frequently to check on their vineyards and wines. Over the last year we have seen increased interest from this market segment as owners would also like to increase the quality of Argentine Wines that are available in the Brazilian market.
We found Bodega El Porvenir‘s wines through our weekly blind tastings last year and I remember tasting through the wines and thinking what great quality, concentration and flavors in a wide range of varietals.
With our group of tasters that consists of around 7 people, we were unanimous with our approval of these wines- this almost never happens! We have a few wineries that fit that profile, where we seem to love all the wines that they make, and El Porvenir is definitely one of them.
He recently rated several of their wines with 90 points and above.
• Laborum Syrah 2005 – 91 points – Drink from 2011 – 2020
• Laborum Tannat 2005 – 91+ points – Drink from 2014 – 2025
• Laborum Malbec 2004 – 91+ points – Drink from 2007 – 2025
• Laborum Malbec 2005 – 90 points – Drink from 2011 – 2020
• Laborum Malbec – Cabernet 2005 – 90 points – Drink from 2011 – 2018
Check out The Vines online wine shop where we have the Tannat and the Syrah as well as their amazing blend named Amauta which at $36 is a steal. Also next week we will be introducing their Malbec and Torrontes so make sure you try all of their wines- you won’t be disappointed!
Salta, and Cafayate in particular, is an amazing place to visit- its a mixture between cactus and vineyards, desolate vistas and color soaked rocks. Located at 1750 meters, or 5,740 feet above sea level, it is one of the highest altitude vineyard terroirs in the world!
El Porvenir currently has 192 acres of their own vineyards, planted with the utmost care and divided into two estates: Río Seco and El Retiro.
The climatic characteristics of the zone of Cafayate are perfect for the development of high-level viticulture. With winemaker Luis Asmet and consulting winemaker Paul Hobbs, they are able to extract the best of what Salta has to offer.
The deep, sandy soil, poor and without limiting topsoils, gives a perfect base for cultivating vines and due to the altitude of the zone, the day-night difference (thermal amplitude) is 15- 18ºC (59-64ºF) during the vegetative cycle of the vine. This translates into a notable difference in the polyphenols in the wine compared to lower altitude zones, giving wines with better structure and color, more suited for oak aging and for the later storage and favorable evolution in the bottle.
In addition to at least 350 days of brilliant sunlight an average yearly rainfall of around only 120 millimeters and the absence of hail, it is one of Argentina’s top wine growing regions.
If you get the chance make sure that you stop by the winery in Cafayate- it is centrally located in town, which is an amazing experience in itself, and they offer personalized attention to learn more about their wines and the region. They offer personalized activities in which you can choose what you’d like to do. This could include touring the vineyards, winemaker-guided tastings, a typical regional lunch, horseback riding in the vineyards, a carriage ride, or a private appointment to buy wine direct in our cave.
Reservations should be made in advance by emailing tastingday@bodegaselporvenir.com or calling the winery.
Here at The Vines of Mendoza we taste a lot of wine blind, to pick wines for our online wine shop, our Acequia Wine Clubs as well as to educate our Private Vineyard Estate owners about different characteristics that different varietals have. While there is a lot of scepticism about blind tastings, its great to get people’s honest, gut reactions to a wine. It gives you the opportunity to taste wines in “context,” comparing and contrasting the scents, tastes and textures of one wine against others in a similar price range, the same vintage or the same region to see if there are terroir similarities, or vintage or winemaker differences.
Obviously wines are experiential and they can change depending on the food, the atmosphere and even the friends that you are with- but to get a birds eye view into a wine it is often interesting to taste it blind. You might even surprise yourself about which wines are your favorites.
So the big question- why blind tastings? You take away all your thoughts and replace them with senses. You get to know what your nose smells, your mouth tastes, and how your brain thinks. There is no right or wrong answer- all you have to do is experience.
Here are some of our tips to host your own blind tasting:
SET UP
Items needed: Wine glasses, spit bucket(s), pens, crackers to cleanse your palate, bags to cover the bottles and score sheets to rate the smell, taste, color and finish- see below.
Make sure your tasting space is well-lit to allow you to examine the color of each wine.
Use a different wine glasses for each wine. This will allow you to compare the wines against each other and revisit
each wine to see how they develop throughout the tasting.
All red wines should be open one hour prior to tasting and served at a temperature of 64 degrees F.
White wines should be served chilled at 50 degrees F.
Consider adding a selection of “sample aromas” to your tasting. It is an excellent (and fun!) way to help you search for those words that describe the aroma, bouquet and flavor of each wine. Place another set of wine glasses on the
table with a small amount of some of the following items in each glass: Grapefruit, pear, grass, vanilla, honey, cinnamon, cloves, black peppercorns, licorice, dark chocolate, coffee, strawberry,
raspberry, cherry, fruit jams, soil.
TASTING
Pour approximately one ounce (about one inch) of each wine in its respective glass (Wine 1 in Glass 1, Wine 2 in Glass
2, etc.). Try to keep some of each wine so you can re-taste each one the next day to see how the wine develops.
Follow the enclosed Wine Tasting Guide to analyze each wine and record your observations and scores on the respective
scoring sheets. Take your time and re-visit each wine throughout the tasting.
It is winter in Mendoza and our gorgeous Andes Mountains are completely covered in snow. If you have ever come to Mendoza during this season, you will find that the nicest and sunniest part of the day is immediately after lunch – what we call siesta time. For this reason, we chose to do our barrel tasting at the finca, enjoying the warm siesta sun with the Andes as a backdrop. Who needs better inspiration than that?
Every week, Santiago Achaval, The Vines consulting winemaker, and Pablo Martorell, The Vines winemaker, do barrel tastings of the nearly 50 different wines that we are aging for our Private Vineyard Estates owners.
The wines are now undergoing malolactic fermentation and starting their vital journey of aging. It is necessary to monitor the wines during this process to ensure stability of the wine and the absence of any possible fault that might contaminate the wines.
At this stage, the main character of the wine is already determined. However, depending on the style of wine chosen by our clients, there are some small procedures that will need to be done in order to help achieve their desired style. For instance, if you want to improve the mid-palate structure of the wine, the number of battonage per month may vary. Battonage is the process of stirring the wine while it remains in its barrel on its yeast lees. This process results in the extraction of additional amino acids and mannoproteins from the yeast creating a “creamy” mouthfeel.
In essence, the main objective of these regular barrel tastings is to ensure a very good quality, observing the aging process in order to obtain the best characteristics out of each wine.
A good friend of mine, Ashley Hepworth, winemaker for Joseph Phelps vineyards in Napa, is in quite a few tasting groups in California and often creates different tastings around regions, vintages, and varietals. She recently contacted me for some suggestions regarding Malbecs from Argentina and I was more than happy to suggest my favorites! We narrowed the wines down to what was currently available in the US market, as well as included some larger and smaller producers. We deduced that 2005 was the vintage that was most widely available for these iconic Malbecs, that included Catena Zapata’s Adrianna Vineyard, Monteviejo’s Lindaflor, Achaval Ferrer’s Altamira, Urraca’s Familia Langley and the Montecinco Oak.
She and a group of 8 high profile winemakers sat down to a double blind tasting. This means that only she knew what they were tasting- the winemakers had to come up with the varietal and region and if possible year, but that is extremely difficult if you have not passed your sommelier course recently.
The results were interesting- not one of them guessed that it was Malbec! It goes to show that Malbec has many different personalities as well as winemaking styles, depending on the winemakers philosophy, region, fermentation and production practices and oak aging. Here are the results, with the winner being Catena Zapata’s Adrianna Vineyard. Go ahead, buy the wines yourselves and see what your group comes up with!
However the results were not unanimous so everyone does have a different palate. Here are the results per person, ranking each of the wines above. Even though Catena won, it was the 3rd favorite wine for over half of the tastings, so it ranked higher in points overall but if you asked one person, they would have said another wine was their favorite. So don’t be intimidated that your wine preferences aren’t the same as others, even the winemakers don’t agree!
One of the advantages of being in the wine business is occasionally you have to be the guinea pig- trying new and interesting wines or unique wine pairings. One of my good friends, Marcela Lledo, is creating new wine pairings and tasting experiences for Bodega Navarro Correas. Located just outside of Mendoza city in Godoy Cruz, it offers an easy way to do a fast tasting of not only their sparkling wines but also their line of still wines. We obtained different gourmet products from Recetas de Entonces/Cristo de los Cerro and then went to work- what paired well with what, what nuances were overwhelmed, what pairings were plain god-awful- we noted our likes, dislikes and came up with the following combinations.
Sparkling Wine Pairings Navarro Correas and Recetas de Entonces
• Navarro Correa Extra Brut (Pinot/Chardonnay blend), Method Charmat. Suggested Pairing: Asparagas points or Eggplant a la siciliana
• Navarro Correa Brut Rose Malbec, Method Charmat. Suggested Pairing: Eggplant with mint and semi-sweet peppers
• Navarro Correa Grand Cuvee (Pinot/Chardonnay), method Champenoise. Suggested Pairing: Eggplant a la siciliana y sundried tomatoes. Opiconal: Mediterranean Tapenade.
Navarro Correas Wine Pairings and Recetas de Entonces
• Coleccion Privada Sauvignon Blanc. Suggested Pairing: Eggplants with mint, artichoke hearts in water or asparagus points
• Coleccion Privada Chardonnay. Suggested Pairing: Asparagus points and Eggplant with mint.
• Coleccion Privada Merlot. Suggested Pairing: Crackers with creme fraiche with a dab of roasted red pepper juice and asparagus points
• Alegoría Malbec. Suggested Pairing:sundried tomatoes- kick it up with crackers topped with creme fraiche, sundried tomatoes and mediterranean tapenade
• Alegoria Cabernet Sauvignon. Suggested Pairing: Mediterranean tapenade with sundried tomatoes.
• Tardio Alegoria, Late Harvest Semillon/Sauvignon Blanc. Suggested Pairing: Roasted red peppers
If you would like to try out these delectable pairings for yourself, make sure to schedule a visit to their tasting room on your next trip to Mendoza. They usually hold tours and winery visits Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10am, 12pm, and 3pm. Be sure to make a reservation- they pride themselves on their personalized service. Call Leo at 261-432-5521 or 261-15-507-1684.
Both the US and Argentina were reveling in Independence festivities last week. Here in Argentina we had a long weekend with our Independence Day on Friday July 9th, 2010.
Coutesy of Wikipedia here is a bit of history on Argentina’s Independence day as well as some wines from The Vines to celebrate!
The Independence of Argentina was declared on July 9, 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán. Actually, Argentina was not a country yet; the congressmen joined in Tucuman declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America (still today one of the legal names of the Argentine Republic). The three Litoral provinces (Santa Fé, Entre Ríos and Corrientes) were expelled from the Congress, along with Banda Oriental, present-day Uruguay. At the same time, several provinces from the Alto Perú were represented that would later become part of present-day Bolivia.
The May Revolution of 1810 followed the deposition of the Spanish king Fernando VII by Napoleon. The revolution terminated the authority of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata and replaced it with the Primera Junta.
When the king returned in 1814, Spain was determined to recover control over its colonies in the Americas. The royalists were victorious at the battles of Sipe-Sipe, Huaqui, Vilcapugio and Ayohuma, in what had been the Viceroyalty of Peru. From there they planned to attack the bases of José de San Martín, and to make their way to Buenos Aires.
On April 15, 1815, a revolution ended the mandate of Carlos María de Alvear and demanded that a General Congress be summoned. Delegate deputies, each representing 15,000 inhabitants, were sent from all the provinces to the sessions, which started on March 24, 1816. However, several territories that had until then belonged to the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata did not send delegates: the Banda Oriental (“Eastern Bank”, today Uruguay), which was faithful to José Gervasio Artigas; Paraguay, which had already proclaimed its independence; and the Gran Chaco, still fighting against Native resistance.
The Congress was inaugurated in the city of Tucumán, with 33 deputies. The presidency of the Congress would be rotated monthly. Because the Congress had the freedom to choose topics to debate, endless discussions ensued.
The voting finally ended on July 9 with a declaration of independence. The Declaration pointed to the circumstances in Europe of the past six years—the removal of the King of Spain by the Napoleon and the subsequent refusal of Ferdinand VII to accept constitutional rule both in the Peninsula and overseas. The Document claimed that Spanish America recovered its sovereignty from the Crown of Castile in 1808, when Ferdinand VII had been deposed, and therefore, any union between the overseas dominions of Spain and the Peninsula had been dissolved. This was a legal concept that was also invoked by the other Spanish American declarations of independence, such as Venezuela’s (1811) and Mexico’s (1813), which were responding to the same events. The president of the Congress at the time was Francisco Narciso de Laprida, delegate from San Juan Province. Subsequent discussions centered on what form of government the emerging state should adopt.
The congress continued its work in Buenos Aires in 1817, but it dissolved in 1820 after the Battle of Cepeda, which deepened the differences between the Unitarian Party, who favored a strong central government, and the Federales Argentina, who favored a weak central government.
Tomorrow is the big battle- Argentina vs. Germany! To gear up for the battle we felt it appropriate to pre-game a bit with some of South Africa’s finest wines.
The Vines of Mendoza Weekly Wines Series | South African Wines
Be sure to cheer Argentina on to victory tomorrow in South Africa!
