Argentinian Wine Tasting Evening
A superb wine tasting evening organised by Ruta40, with a live link to the ‘Bodega Tempus Alba’ vineyard in Argentina, where we were able to talk directly with the owners as we sampled their excellent wines!
We had a wonderful evening on Wednesday 26 May in the company of Mark Bradbury from Ruta40, specialist Argentinian boutique wine merchants, and the fifth generation owners of the ‘Bodega Tempus Alba’ vineyard in Argentina, Sibila Genolet and Mariano Biondolillo.
Located in near Maipu in the Mendoza wine region in the foothills of the Andes, Tempus Alba specialises in producing low volume high quality wines. The high altitude and dry and sunny climate is ideal for the vines. Semi arid, the land is watered by snow-melt from the Andes and the vineyard carefully controls the amount of water each vine receives to maximise the quality.
We sampled six wines, two white and four red, including an Argentinian white, a Torrontes, a classic Malbec and rather special blended 2015 Alba Pleno. Mariano and Sibila then took us on a tour of the winery, to view the fermentation tanks and the ageing barrels, a mix of French and American oak and to describe their winemaking technique.
We enjoyed two very enjoyable hours in the company of Mark, Sibila and Mariano; the live link to Argentina in particular was a real bonus. Our thanks to all three of them for organising such a splendid tasting.