Learn Argentine Wines With an Urban Wine Tour | Kevin Richberg

Learn Argentine Wines With an Urban Wine Tour | KevinRichberg

At its conclusion, the participants gather back at the starting point where Sol, the creator of WineTour Urbano, finishes the evening with a wine bottle raffle.

The wines transport you to places throughout Argentina, far beyond the setting of Buenos Aires. Thisimage comes from the Valle Medio de Rio Negro (almost 600 miles from Buenos Aires), home of thenewly restored Establecimiento La Esmeralda, a winery from the early 20th Century forced toshutter its doors in the late 50s, only to find new 21st Century life in the hands of Ignacio VidelaDorna, who I was able to personally meet during Wine Tour Urbano. His vines had only been in theground since 2008, and their signature 2013 wines were making their debut appearances at WineTour.

We took a group photo to give everyone a sense of the interest this monthly tour receives. I have toadmit, I entered the evening expecting a couple http://mdlimousineservice.com/ dozen folks to give ita go, and was pretty amazed that the actual turnout is more like dozens of dozens.

With your WTU glass in hand you travel to each of the hosting locations (they could be hotel lobbies,sometimes jewelry stores, sometimes cafes, ect.), where you find a different winery from Argentinaand a sommelier ready to serve you wine and knowledge. Ask as many questions as you want, this isan opportunity for Argentina to introduce you to her offerings.

Personally, I love traveling across hemispheres to flip the seasons. There's nothing like beating theJanuary blues in North America by sipping chilled wines in the heat of an 85 degree summer inSouth America.

When you visit Buenos Aires, you'll betucked up in the Argentine Northeast Coast,along the Rio Plata. The luscious, powerfulwines from the valleys of Mendoza are alongthe Andes all the way on the western side ofthe nation. The crisp, refreshing wines of theRio Negro are a twelve hour drive to thesouth.

This is how it works: Each year the Wine Tour Urbano dates and the meeting point are listed on thewebsite, along with the map for that month's festivities. No need to sign-up, you just show up! Asyou make your way to the meeting point, listen hire limo melbourne for the music guiding you to theWTU banner (pictured above). If you find the banner, the hard part is over, it's all reds and whitesfrom there!

Each Wine Tour adventurer purchases a wine glass, which acts as your ticket to evening's tastings.You can enter your name into the nightly raffle (held at the tour's conclusion three hours later), andan electronic map on your cell phone becomes your guide to that night's tasting locales.

Photos of Wine Tour Urbano were taken on January 9th, 2015 by Kevin Richberg; Photo of LaEsmeralda provided by Ignacio Videla Dorna.

Argentina also produces stellar whites, still and sparkling. On my own personal quest to try newwines, I discovered the Argentine white powerhouse -- the Torronts. Considered to be Argentina'screation, the Torronts comprises the largest percentage of white grape acreage in the nation, andis steadily increasing due to growing overseas popularity.

Wine is a passion! For the producers, for the consumers, for Argentina, and for me, wine is mostcertainly a passion. Viticulture is the 7,000 year old hobby we continually love to celebrate.

So Cheers!

Cheers to Sol and the city of http://photobucket.com/images/limousine#! Buenos Aires for putting onsuch a fantastic and educational event. Cheers to Argentina for making some of the World's mostimpressive wines. Cheers to the idea of "Educational Tourism," stepping out for an incrediblyevening and returning more knowledgeably than when you started!

But what happens when you travel to a spectacular, world famous wine producing country, but endup over 600 miles from the nearest winery?

Wine Tour Urbano lasts around three hours, and of course you can start and stop whenever you like.The "three hours" gives the wineries an idea of how much product to provide, and to give the wineexplorers a time frame to visit all the different participating venues (the goal, of course, is not to getso blotto you forget where you are -- in Buenos Aires -- it's to give you enough time to leisurely sipand taste, while making mental notes of your favorites).

My first tasting led me to Argentina's signature grape varietal, the Malbec. This inky-dark grape isplanted across over 50,000 acres of Argentine valleys and accounts for a majority of its sizable wineexports. The worldwide demand for dark robust Argentine Malbecs has propelled the nation to 5th

on the list of wine producing countries (following Italy, France, Spain, and the United States).

Wine Tour Urbano isn't about choosing specific wines to hawk with a captive audience (I wouldn'thave written this piece had it been simply a dressed up sales pitch). Different wineries participateeach and every time, making the experience a true showcase of oenology and old fashioned tastetesting. Winemakers choose to present the results of their craft out of a sense of pride, and aconfidence that word of mouth from discerning palates will boost their commercial successes.

Enter: Wine Tour Urbano -- where the wineries of Argentina make their way to the streets of BuenosAires for a monthly tasting extravaganza.