Drinking Wine in the Paris of South America
Drinking Wine in the Paris of South America
Malbec in Buenos Aires
Our waiter brought out two shot glasses filled with a cloudy, yellow liquid. “Limoncello,” he stated. On the house. He was smiling, impressed by all the meat and wine these two gringos had just consumed. My friend and I toasted and took the shot of lemony liqueur. The perfect ending to a dinner which consisted of four or five bottles of Malbec wine and at least as many courses of Argentine asado.
Getting tight in Buenos Aires is a lot like getting tight in Paris. You drink wine. Bottles and bottles of it. The only difference is, you eat lots of meat, too. Different cuts of tasty Argentine beef. Bife de chorizo, bife de ojo, and on and on. Cattle down south are more free-range and more hormone-free than any cow raised on a hipster organic farm in North America. Bless their efforts, but you haven’t eaten steak until you’ve gone south of the equator. The cows down south just taste better. And Argentines are passionate about their meat.
But this is about the wine. The smooth, smooth Malbec. Say it out loud, and it’s as if you’re stealing two kisses from the lips of the girl you really love. Deep, dark, velvety red wine that goes down tenderly, like a summer sunset easing into the summer night. Cue the stars. Malbecs are as saintly as the saints they’re named after, and as sinful as the summertime in January. The grape originated in France, but ran away to Argentina, leaving France a cuckold.
We were the first table seated at El Obrero, a dressed-down, gritty parrilla in the neighborhood of La Boca. We ordered a bottle of Malbec from the Mendoza region of Argentina to build up our appetite. We drank it. We did our best not to touch the bread. This was the best meat in the world and we weren’t going to waste any stomach space. We might as well have closed the place. Malbec after Malbec, glass after glass, the white table cloth was gradually painted with grease and grape while the parrilla slowly filled. Sweet Spanish spoken from smiling, laughing lips filled the air. It didn’t matter if Brazilian soul music was playing or 1930s love songs by Carlos Gardel. The parrilla was unassuming and the night slipped by unhurried and unnoticed and the wine kept coming and the dinner was beautiful.
I found Hemingway’s moveable feast in Buenos Aires. I found it in the wine, in the cobblestone streets, in the narrow corridors. Most of all, I found it in the people who ate well and drank well. If you’re feeling nostalgic, all you have to do is buy a bottle of Malbec. Make sure it’s from Mendoza. Uncork it with a Gaucho knife, take a swig, and know that it could just be 5pm in Buenos Aires and the tables are being set, the wine being served, and the gods are just firing up the grill.