HIDDY

I'd be interested to know from a tourists perspective what you've found to be a good buy to take home from your trip to this country? Wine is the obvious choice and cigarettes if you're a smoker but what else?

My wife and I were having this conversation last week during a visit to Buenos Aires. We had time time to do some shopping but as we're heading to Scotland for a holiday this year we decided to wait and buy there as the prices and quality are far superior to what you get here even with the 35% foreign transaction charge.
Compared to years gone by there does seem to be an awful lot of overpriced poor quality crap here these days. For something you'd get in the £ shop in the UK you pay at least five times the price here.

Eastbay1K

Some wines are a great buy (especially if not available for export) but others are much cheaper elsewhere; i.e., there is one in particular where the US price (at least the California price) is similar to the wholesale price in Argentina.

Gaucho100K

Im not a Tourist but here goes anyway....

Aside from Wines, and as posted above one should concentrate on the labels that are not exported (which are in any event the vast majority), one item to consider is bespoke shoes. For me, the best option in EZE for this is Daniel Correa....

http://www.calzadoscorrea.com.ar/v2/

HIDDY

Good call on the shoes.

Yes I used to buy Argentine Malbec from the supermarket back in the UK when they did a special offer on it.
I must make a point of checking what the prices are like now in the UK compared to here for a similar grade wine. Probably not that much different.

Gaucho100K

Grade wine...???

Are you telling us you have dumped that Reserva San Juan plonk and are now drinking "grade" wine....?????

Eastbay1K

There's a cat on the box that just entered the third grade.

HIDDY

To be honest no wine or spirits has passed my lips for the last three months. I've been following doctors orders since suffering a gallstone attack and ending up in the local clinic in October.....all those asados finally caught up with me.

Just before Christmas I had my gallbladder removed at the excellent Hospital Aleman in BA. ^ Despite being given the all clear to eat and drink all I want I've only been drinking beer.

flyr16

Gaucho related/inspired "stuff" is a good buy. Boots (riding), belts, some jackets. Carpincho items are essentially only available in ARG, and that material lasts and lasts. Some inexpensive leather items too, paying attention to quality. Plus, jars of dulce de leche, of course.....

HIDDY

Carpincho jackets and boots were all the fashion here years ago. Apart from a pair of moccasins and some belts I never did get around to buying anything else.
Now they seem not to be as fashionable amongst Argentines as they once were.

Marambio

Funny to find a Scot in provincia de Buenos Aires while I'm a porteño in Midlothian.

I was in Argentina a few weeks ago for the holidays, and wine is definitely cheaper there. Here in Edinburgh you will not get any reasonable Malbec for less than 8 to 10 pounds, i.e. 150 to 200 pesos at the "tarjeta" rate. In Buenos Aires I went to my nearest Chinese supermarket -they tend to be cheaper for wine than Carrefour et. al.- and found a bottle of Dadá for 40 pesos. Dadá is a reasonable wine in my opinion.

Leather clothing is also cheaper in Argentina, as are shoes. The rest of clothing costs roughly the same in Buenos Aires than in Edinburgh, but here they are better quality.

Books used to be cheaper in Buenos Aires, but this time I didn't check the English section of any bookstore, so I don't know which exchange rate they are using.

HIDDY

Hi Marambio good to know about the wine.

Must admit I'm not into leather clothing so have never taken much interest in it here or back home. Argentine over the counter shoes are a bit hit and miss value wise. I've had to throw out several pairs of average price hardly worn shoes after the soles crumbled away. Hush Puppies/Timberland/Sport shoes and such like are definitely cheaper in the UK. Agree that clothing in general is much better quality and more widely available in the UK than here. I used to buy clothing from Cardon. The quality was guaranteed and prices reasonable. Now the quality isn't as good and the prices are ridiculous.....doesn't stop the wife from buying them though.

Gaucho100K

Hiddy..... Correa is a true Cobbler in the full traditional sense, so his shoes are not budget items. Having said this, he does have 3 ranges of shoes that go from the super-high end bespoke things for which you must be fitted a couple of times to his regular casual series of shoes that are still 100% hand-made but that go though a more standardized crafting process and are made in somewhat larger batches, this allow him to price them in a more reasonable range.

His casual series of shoes go for approx. AR$1400-1600 depending on the model and the leather(s) used. For the quality that they deliver, I find them to be of outstanding value. His super high end shoes can cost up to AR$25,000-30,000 if you want crocodile or another exotic leather, in that range the values are still very good when you compare what something similar would cost in Europe or the USA.

Lovecraft

Yes, alfajores and dulce de leche are the only thing I take back to the UK when I visit Buenos Aires.

HIDDY

I don't see myself being tempted to buy his high end shoes at those prices however the casual ones might be worth looking at.

When we lived in the UK and visited here the wife always took back kilos and kilos of Yerba. Alfajoras not so much as she isn't that keen on them and I think most of them are overrated. She stopped taking back dulce de leche after she found it in Tesco.

TomMM

I was in BA for Christmas and found bottled water cheap compared to the US.