AnuvaBlog

The “Vinos y Bodegas 2008″ fair was this last weekend here in Buenos Aires and many a person turned out. One of the things that always amazes me about the vast majority of Argentine bodegas (wineries) is how few of them do any blending. All of them have a Malbec and most have Cabernet, Syrah, Chardonnay, Merlot and maybe some Bonarda, Torrontés, Pinot Noir, Tannat, Sauvignon Blanc, or other varietals, but they sell them only as that: varietals.

Certainly varietals make for great wines and also play to that genre categorization feature that people tend to like in their products (i.e. knowing what they are going to get), but it leaves out the possibility for more personalized “winemaker” wines. I love it when you get a wine like Don Juan where the winemaker explains to you how many iterations he went through in determining the 70/11/10/9 split of Malbec/Syrah/Bonarda/Merlot. This is what makes great wine.

I think that for starting out and for understanding each of the varietals and how typicity works, that single varietal wines are fine. More than fine. Many are great. I would have to say that blends often take the best aspects of many wines that a winery or winemaker does and brings them together to form a masterpiece.

We had cracked open a bottle of Don Juan Reserve for ourselves on Monday night, as we had some friends in from out of town and wanted to show off some of our best stuff to them. After opening the 3rd bottle (because they loved it of course), we realized that we weren’t going to finish it as we had to work the next day.

Routinely, as I’m sure is the case for many of you, we open wines especially on weeknights to have a glass or so with dinner and we are left with 1/3 or 1/2 of a bottle. Que pena! We don’t want to throw this wine away. The best strategy for preserving opened wine is the shove the cork back into the bottle as far as it will go and then lye it down in the refrigerator. This will help to slow the oxidation of the wine and make it last longer.

We have experimented with our classic wines (like Mayol Bonarda and Cavagnaro Malbec) and have found that these wines are still very drinkable up to 48 hours after opening. With our reserves (like Don Juan and Cavagnaro Reserve), this number goes up to 96 hours.

Once you pass these points, though, you are better off cooking with the wine. More on what to do with very leftover wine in future posts.