Below a link to the Restaurant / F&B scene:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/argen...-volume-i.html

I'm glad I stumbled on this thread. There's a wine sale at one of our more reputable wine shops and I'm going to have to go back and look at the Benegas I saw there.

We've been buying a few Argentina wines of late since we're going next month (a few listed in this thread a couple years ago). We generally buy nothing over $20 (US) a bottle so my range is fairly limited, but here's some of my thoughts.

1. Terrazas de los Andes Malbec (2007): One of the best Malbecs I've tasted. We've gone to 3 wine stores in town since we had it and they're all sold out currently.

2. Alamos Malbec (2007): Nothing special. Thought I had picked up a bottle of something else last time I was at the store and got this by accident.

3. Achaval Ferrer Mendoza Malbec (2007): Although I like the Terrazas a little more, I really enjoyed this Malbec. I made the mistake initially of not letting the wine "breathe" for a little bit, but after that it was delicious.

4. Alfredo Roca Malbec (2005): This is from San Rafael actually. Almost as good as the Achaval Ferrer IMO. I think we got it for less than $10/bottle.

We have 3 or 4 more to try (at least) before we go. We've focused more on the Bodegas we plan to visit, but the "research" we're doing as part of this trip has been excellent. Unforunately the state of Minnesota has some stupid wine laws so it's sometime tough to find certain styles.

Thanks to everyone who contributes to this thread, and especially Alex for the thoughts he's provided to me as we plan our Mendoza trip.

Dave... do go back for the Benegas... you will not be dissapointed... ^

We did..and we weren't disappointed. We tried a 2005 Luna Benegas Cab and it was delicious. Can't wait to try a few of the others.

There was some distributor at the wine store too who was raving about Benegas and jealous we were going to Mendoza...

Dave... glad you enjoyed the wines.... since you like the Benegas style.... dont forget to taste:

Clara Benegas Chardonnay
Juan Benegas Malbec
Don Tiburcio (blend)

If you are up for somewhat higher-end wines.... Benegas has to other lines of wines, the Benegas Estate and Benegas Lynch labels that are outstanding.

They were actually out of the Juan Benegas Malbec and the Clara Benega Chardonnay when we went. My wife was actually disappointed I picked up the Cab until she tried it.

We're going to look for some of those other lines while on our trip and then see if the distributors will carry more of it.

The highlights of the Benegas Estate line are...

Benegas Estate Malbec
Benegas Estate Sangiovese
Benegas Finca Libertad

Are these malbec wines available in older (say 10+ years) vintages to give them more structure and a certain finesse?
Also, what would there % alcohol content be?

Argentine wines are indeed available in older vintages. However, as with all wines, the back vintages of the best years can get very expensive very quickly.

The alochol content % in Argentine wines has evolved the exact same way that the wines from the rest of the world. If you look at back vintages of Bordeaux, Italians, Spanish and also Australian wines, they all have increased at least 15-20% (incremental variation) over the past 2 or so decades.

Why is this....? Its a case of the wine critics pushing for more upfront fruit, more structure (bolder, bigger wines)... which leads winemakers to pick the grapes at higher levels of ripeness, which increases the amount of sugar which almost always leads to higher levels of alcohol.

Having said all this, most consumers are infatuated with the % alcohol in a wine, and are "psicologically" influenced by a certaing % figure... this can be tricky, as what really matters in a wine is not the absolute % of alcohol, but rather the overall balance in the wine. Without getting tooo technical and going into Wine Chemistry (and Im no Chemist), a key variable to watch is the level of acidity (Ph) in the wine.... with the right acidity, even a wine that has 15.5 or even 16% can be in perfect balance. Take a 12.5% alcohol wine with poor balance and it will seem to have 20% alcohol when compared to a 15.5% alcohol wine that is in equilibrium.

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A new producer to watch out for:

Bodega Universo Austral... highlight of their portfolio is the Calafate Reserve Pinot Noir, amazing value for money... ^

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Achaval Ferrer has announced availability of its Dolce dessert (red) wine. Passito style Malbec.

We did try all 3 of these during our Benegas tour as well as the Benegas Syrah. All 3 of these were not disappointing.

We weren't initially going to try the Malbec but they brought it out along with the other 3 since we had been talking about how much we love Malbec.

Dave, did you guys sample any of the Benegas Lynch series wines...? They are the 'flagship' wines of this Estate.

Unfortunately we didn't get to try anything from the Benegas Lynch line. We had to juggle our day around so Benegas was our 4th tour of the day and I wasn't in the mood to try any more wine at that point.

I was going to try a glass at the Vines of Mendoza but we just never really made over there (sad given we were right next door practically.) I'll give myself a big for blowing that one.

This post is more geared to those not familiar with Mendoza and the winery experience, I thought it would be a good opportunity to share my thoughts on the wine experience (based on visiting 14 wineries) compared to the Napa or Sonoma experience. I shared some other general stuff in the Mendoza thread but thought this might be a little more pertinent for the wine thread.

1. Argentina wine is so much more than just Malbec, as is the impression we get here in the midwest part of the US. We knew we would try a lot of different types of wine but thought we would end up gravitating to the Malbec when it came time to bring some wine home. You'll see how wrong I was when you see my list of favorites below.

2. The tours in Mendoza are longer tours where they will walk you through the entire winery. Just when we thought we would be tired of seeing tanks and barrels we'd either see something a little different or find out something unique about their processes, history, etc that made it fun to keep going.

3. There is absolutely no obligation (as others have said here) to buy wines at a winery. They will happily sell you the wine, but I got the impression that it isn't the norm at many of the places we visited. We tried to buy at least a bottle from every producer because it can be difficult (but not impossible) to find the wines in Minnesota.

4. I was surprised at the number of higher end wines we got to sample during our tours. Most of them came as part of the standard tastings but it is also worth the few extra pesos to try the more premium wines.

5. In addition to the quality of wines, the tasting "samples" are more like full glasses (not the tiny bit as in Napa). That doesn't even include the barrel or tank tasting you do at some of these wineries either. We learned pretty quick you need to pace yourself if you're planning to visit more than a couple wineries in a day.

6. You'll get to try a lot of different types of tasting. We tasted wines being sold as well as out of tanks and barrels. We also got to try some Terroir tasting at Achaval Ferrer where you try 3 wines (100% Malbec) grown from grapes at different estates. The terroir tasting was a great experience to see how much different 3 wines can taste when the only major difference in them was the micro-climate where they were grown.

As I mentioned in the Mendoza thread we tried so many wonderful wines so it is hard to pick some favorites. The list I've put together covers both some of our favorites as well as wines that we found distinctive. I put the years in where I could remember the exact vintages.

-- Carmelo Patti Gran Assemblage (2003): This is one of the best wines I've ever tried anywhere (and the best blend by far.) I've heard the 2002 is even better though.

-- CarinaE Malbec Finca Deneza (2004): I believe this is the first year wine was produced by CarinaE. It was probably the best Malbec we tried, although the Kinien from Ruca Malen was also very good.

-- Achaval Ferrer Finca Altamira: One of the Terrior wines they sell. We tried all 3 from a barrel so they were very young, but this really stood out.

-- Tempus Alba Pleno: One of the best blends we tried. All of the Tempus Alba wines we tried were excellent but this was the best of them IMO.

-- Benegas Sangiovese: I generally don't like 100% Sangiovese wines, but I could have bought a case of this wine very easily. I think people trying this blindly would be shocked to find out it is from Argentina

-- Salentein Pinot Noir (2005): I tried a Pinot Noir from Argentina before we left and it was awful so I was worried to try this one. Argentina will become a great place for Pinot if more of them taste like the one from Salentein and the one we had at Vistalba.

-- Vistalba Corte B: Another excellent blend wine. The 30% Bonarda in this wine gives it a very distinct and excellent taste.

-- Ruca Malen Petite Verdot: Another wine with a very distinctive taste. I haven't tried a lot of Petite Verdot but there was just something about this wine I really enjoyed.

-- Achaval Ferrer dolce (Malbec dessert wine 2008): Alex mentioned this earlier in the thread. It's probably the best dessert wine I've tried anywhere. You can only buy it at the winery since they made only 1000 bottles of it but hopefully production will increase so it can be exported.

I hope the list is helpful for those who might look for something interesting to try either in Mendoza or when looking for a wine or two in the US.