In an attempt to make wines easier to understand, my company, Anuva Wines, has taken the liberty to use brief catch phrases to sum up, in an albeit “high concept” way, all of the wines we carry. Hom espumante is “The Crowd Pleaser”, Cavagnaro Malbec “Opens Like Violets in the Morning”, and Anecon Torrontés is “For Poolside Sipping.” Why? Try the wine and you will understand.
One of the most important reasons that I fell in love with wine in Argentina has to be Torrontés. What a luminous moment when I inhaled the bouquet of white flower, honey and citrus during my first encounter. I expected the mouth to be almost sweet, as the nose had given me this hint, but was pleasantly surprised when I found a dry, crisp and refreshing burst of grapefruit, apricot and pineapple flavours with quite a long finish.
This originally Spanish grape never really had a claim to fame before it was planted here because of Torrontés’ tendency to become fatty or oily when not grown under the right conditions: high altitude, tremendous abundance of sunshine, porous rocky soil.
Fortunately, Salta, in the Northwest corner of Argentina has just these conditions and to a lesser extent La Rioja and San Juan do as well. These three regions, but especially Salta produce the best (and nearly the only) Torrontés in the world.
Our executive chef and I then put our heads together to attempt to make this already luscious wine an even bigger hit. Capitalising on the citrus flavours in the mouth, we put together a shaved celery and fennel salad with grapefruit confiture. Stupendous. Bursts of sweet citrus abound in your mouth while the licorice quality of the fennel gives character and the celery crunch and texture.
A simpler combination would be honeydew melon wrapped in prosciutto or fig jam on brie cheese. Or just pick up some dried apricots.
In any event, thorough sensory pleasure ensues from virtually any form of consumption of this wine. Make sure to serve quite cold and be sure to smell the wine repeatedly as it’s aroma I’m quite sure will eventually be used as ladies perfume.
Daniel Karlin is Founder of Anuva Wines, a premium wine club that hand sources limited production wines from Argentina for shipment to its members in the U.S. He makes his home in Buenos Aires where he offers wine tastings to visitors from all parts. www.anuvawines.com