“This is a wine tour of Argentina I would love to do!”

On arrival in Buenos Aires everyone was excited in anticipation of our inaugural Argentine Wines and Adventures: Mendoza and the Northwest for a variety of reasons. My sister, Jale, was the first to sign up because she enjoys wine, loves good food, likes to practice her Spanish, but most of all because she loves her brother. Her friend Eve from Pasadena, CA said she knew she picked the right trip when she showed our itinerary to an Argentine acquaintance who is a well-respected wine producer in Temecula, California, an up and coming new wine producing region north of San Diego. The Argentine woman who was from Mendoza took one look at our itinerary and said, “Que linda! This is a wine tour of Argentina I would love to do!” and she proceeded to make a photocopy of the itinerary. 

Duke, Gabrielle, Rosemaire, Ruth and Jale, happy to travel in Argentina!

Gabrielle, and her husband Duke who took their young daughter on several Wildland Adventures in years past were sold on the trip because they felt it is the perfect combination of exceptional wine tasting and gastronomy combined with active adventures and exploring off-beat regions of Argentina. “I wanted to go to Patagonia, but when I saw this trip I decided I’ll come back to do that later,” she decided.  Dick Simmons from Edmonds, WA is joining our group treating himself to an organized tour of Argentina after traveling  throughout Patagonia for 2 months.

Our main guide, Jorge Barcelo, a local resident wine and adventure travel expert of Mendoza and Salta.

Julie and Scott left Spokane on a snowy morning to hit summer in the Southern Hemisphere because as she put it, “The marvelous nature of this trip for me was the intriguing question I asked myself: Why are we going to Salta? I want to find out what it’s all about.” Ditto for Cindy who is a professional chef, and Colleen as well who takes advantage of her residence in Venezuela to explore more offbeat regions of South America. Colleen’s mother came along and is our grand dame of the group.

Anne and Kurt Kutay with our wine experts, David and Ruth Arista leading our gastronomy and wine tour of Argentina.

We designed this trip with our expert local Argentine guides, Jorge and Victor, who specialize in the northern reaches of Argentina including Mendoza and Salta. Over a year ago we took the idea to our friends David and Ruth Arista, owners of Arista Wine Cellars of Edmonds, WA, to co-lead the trip as our group wine experts to compliment the Argentine sommeliers we meet along the way. And right away they stepped up the first night at dinner to share their expertise: The wine list was delivered to me as the principal Spanish speaker of the group,  but I happily passed it down the table to let Ruth and David pick out our first bottles of Argentine wine: two Malbecs, and I must say the chilled Torrantes they chose went down nicely on the hot summer’s eve in Buenos Aires.  

Check our Ruth’s blog about our first wine tasting and introduction to the wines of Argentina: Argentine Wine 101 A DeliciousIntroduction 

keeping it wild,

Kurt Kutay