Well the big news is that I am here, in the lovely tree-shaded wine capital of Argentina hard up against the Andes. My flight from London to Buenos Aires took off just the 20 hours late, arriving very early Monday morning. From London I couldn’t get myself on any flight to Mendoza earlier than Monday late afternoon so I was all set for a day’s R&R in the beautiful (and dead cheap) city of BsAs, taking my student nephew out to what I had been assured was the best steak restaurant there, Cabana la Lilas in Puerto Madero.
Huh! I did not bargain for a text message when I landed, decidedly blearily, at 4am telling me that Wines of Argentina had magically managed to get me on an early morning flight to Mendoza. So I fought my way through the human hell that is Buenos Aires’ domestic airport (right in the middle of town, on the coast, and a good 40 minute cab ride from the international airport) and, against all odds, found myself at the Hyatt in Mendoza not long after 10am.
This is a truly great, very wine-minded hotel that I was terribly impressed by last time I was here in 2002 just after it opened in its super modern new incarnation – though still behind the vaguely Ruritanian façade on the main square. (Revolution, anyone?) Hugh Johnson told me last week he remembers staying here pre Hyatt when there were practically rats running round the site.
Even workaholic me could not quite bear to go straight into tasting so I unpacked, showered and settled in (aka caught up with emails) and joined the rest of my fellow judges around 11.30am. This was good timing as it meant that I managed to skip the sparkling wine, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio classes which, rumour has it, were not the most thrilling.
I was in time for a surprisingly impressive clutch of Viogniers, some really impressive Chardonnays (but then I have always maintained that Argentina produces extremely superior Chardonnay), the odd white blend, some very exciting red blends, some ok Tempranillos, a few surprisingly good Merlots, some suitably convincing Malbecs (especially the 2006s) and some good Cabernets.
I was tasting with Henri Chapon of the British Hotel du Vin group and Pedro Marchevsky who was once Catena’s viticulturist.
Unfortunately our tasting table was right next door to that of the panel made up of Oz Clarke, Robert Joseph and Carolos Tizio Mayer and Oz has such a deep, resonant and, let’s face it, loud voice, that it was all rather distracting. However, we battled on and each panel managed to taste around 110 wines each today (yes, far too many). The laudable aim is to have all wines tasted by two panels so that we can really do the checks and balances.
Fireworks to follow, I suspect. Wines of Argentina set a limit of 480 wines to be entered in this, the inaugural Wines of Argentina Awards and, mercifully, received just under 460 entries, My teeth and tongue are absolutely disgusting.