By Bill Zacharkiw for montrealgazette.com
Argentina ranks third in sales by country in Quebec, having overtaken Spain back in 2008. It is still a distant third to France and Italy, but Argentina is definitely on the map of countries to watch. While much of these sales were due to the hundreds of thousands of bottles of Fuzion and other inexpensive brands during the last two years, there has been an influx of more expensive bottles hitting the shelves.
Selling wines at $8.95 is one thing, but now there are more than 40 wines currently listed at more than $20. It will be interesting to see how a new and completely different clientele accepts these new wines. At this price level, wine lovers want a story, a reason to spend more money.
And so do I. I wanted to know what the regions and sub-regions like Mendoza, Uco Valley, Patagonia, La Salt, La Rioja mean. So I did just that. Invited by Wines of Argentina, and accompanied by Toronto-based master sommelier John Szabo, we escaped the coming winter and spent the last two weeks of November in Argentina.
Argentina is one of the more unique countries that I have visited with respect to wine. While there is the notion here in Quebec that the wine industry is young, and much of it is in terms of the age of the wineries themselves, there is actually a long history of wine drinking and grape growing. In most new-world areas, the vines themselves are... READ MORE...
