Indeed... wine tastings are a good way to get a feel of what Mendoza, Salta and Patagonian Wine Country have to offer - with no need to fly out to any of these locations.

However, for the true wine aficionados... please beware of tastings that offer a large number of wines at a too good to be true price. The reason to be wary of such places is that these tastings are offered on the basis of mostly pre-opened bottles. Having already opened bottles and sharing them throughout various tastings on various days makes tastings cheaper, but it is not the proper way to go by tasting wines.

Also, it best to try wines in a setting where you have some food available - this lets you try to see how the wines would perform during a meal.

Finally, I suggest folks make sure that when you do your wine shopping, you can get advice on the following important issues:
- proper packaging for wine if you will be checking it as luggage
- possibility of shipping wine to your country
- getting advice on which labels you cannot buy back where you live
- how to go by putting bottles of wine in your suitcase
- for US based folks, understand how US customs deals with wine
- understand what there is aside from Malbec (wine in Argentina is not only Malbec)