Matt swapped his native England for Argentina in 2002 while chasing Gabriela, an implausibly gorgeous Argentinian whom he married the following year. He has lived and worked (but mainly lived) in Buenos Aires ever since. Having no obvious trade or skills but being quite good at spelling, Matt became a freelance writer. Over the past few years, Matt has written or edited books and articles for a variety of publishers, including Time Out, Wallpaper* and the British Automobile Association. In his spare time Matt translates film scripts, organises charity pub quizzes, consolidates his position as the number one Angry Birds player in the BsAs metropolitan area, and translates traditional nursery rhymes into Spanglish for his daughter Millie. (Her favourite is ‘Pop goes the Weasel’ or ‘Explota la Comadreja’.)
Cooking with wine means you are compelled to uncork a bottle at least an hour before you otherwise would, and to drink a glass or two at least an hour before you probably should. This is self-evidently a good thing.
There is a significant – and growing – minority of diners who think before they drink, and who, when choosing a restaurant, give as much consideration to what they want from the cellar as to what they want from the kitchen. Here are some of the best Buenos Aires restaurants for wine lovers.
If you´re the kind of serious Argentina wine drinker who thinks Mendoza is soooo 2005, strap on a good pair of boots and head for Catamarca in Argentina´s wild, wild west. If the malbec doesn´t grab you, the scenery will
Late September in Buenos Aires – the jacaranda trees will be clothed in purple blossom, the football season will be in full swing and around 50,000 producers, traders and keen drinkers of Argentina wine will be converging on the La Rural exhibition centre for the city’s annual Feria Vinos y Bodegas (Wines and Wineries Fair).
Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of only three men to survive Robert Scott’s ill-fated 1910–12 expedition to the South Pole, penned the definitive book about Antarctica and called it “The Worst Journey in the World”. “Polar exploration,” he wrote, “is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.” Since then, we’ve devised new and more terrifying ways of having ‘a bad time in isolation’ while making travel to Antarctica safe, sociable and fun – as I found out last year when I travelled to the ice continent aboard the Antarctic Dream, a Chilean cruise ship…