What is Jauja?

I first really noticed Jauja when, writing my first guidebook to Argentina in the early 1990s, I visited the alternative Andean community of El Bolsón and tasted some of the most exquisite ice cream ever. Though I had been to Peru, where there’s a city of that name, it never occurred to me that it meant anything more than a place name.

It’s still something of a puzzle to me, even after watching the Argentine director Lisandro  Alonso’s film of the same name (trailer above) on Netflix. I had seen Alonso’s previous film “Liverpool” – a gritty realist effort set, despite the name, in Ushuaia, the world’s southernmost city – but “Jauja” is something else entirely.

To start with, Alonso recruited a big name actor, Viggo Mortensen, as his leading man. That interested me partly because the Danish-American Mortensen shares something of my own Scandinavian heritage but also spent much of his youth in Argentina, where he learned to speak Spanish. Mortensen portrays Danish officer Gunnar Dinesen who, at least in this film, was part of the euphemistically titled “Conquest of the Desert” that displaced the indigenous peoples of what is now Argentine Patagonia in the 1880s.

Patagonia, of course, always attracts my attention, and I’m eager to see whether I recognize the location of any given film. The opening scenes take place in a coastal area where Dinesen and his companions are taking a breather from searching for a deserter who’s become a bandit, and his daughter runs off with a young soldier. It appears to be a western, perhaps resembling US director John Ford’s “The Searchers,” but there’s quite a twist at the end. It's worth stressing, however, that this is not an action movie.

As for the locations seen in the film, I couldn’t catch all the final credits, but one of them mentions the city of Viedma, whose coastline (pictured above) resembles some of the early scenes (including the sea lions along the shore). Alonso probably filmed Dinesen’s search through the mountains at Sierra de la Ventana (pictured below) in southern Buenos Aires province.

Meanwhile, I should point out the ostensible meaning of “jauja” in the Southern Cone - it’s something of a Garden of Eden metaphor, which is ironic in the context of this movie. It’s not, though, in the context of El Bolsón’s ice creamery, which now has branches in other Argentine cities, including my own Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo (pictured below).

Buenos Aires Wines? History and Novelty in the Vicinity

In my previous post, I briefly mentioned the greenbelt that once surrounded Buenos Aires; in the interim, I set about making some inquiries about it. I asked my wife whether she could recall any vineyards from her youth and she couldn’t, but Andrew Graham-Yooll wrote me that, in his rather longer experience, “there have been many chacras [smallholdings] on the outskirts of BA over the decades.”

Andrew cites the example of Tigre and the Paraná Delta, which was a major fruit-growing area – in fact, the riverside market there is still known as the “Puerto de Frutos” (pictured above). He also notes that there were vineyards, for both wine and table grapes, in southern Buenos Aires suburbs like Florencio Varela and Monte Grande, and western fruit and vegetable-growing areas like Castelar, Moreno, General Rodríguez and Luján (all within 25 to 70 km from Buenos Aires), “but all of that has been wiped out by the urban sprawl. My photograph below would suggest that, though I’m not sure of the its precise location – it was taken from a flight landing at Ezeiza, on the capital's southern outskirts.

I wrote, in my previous piece, that the nearest wine-growing area to Buenos Aires was in Sierra de la Ventana (550 km away), but I was wrong. To the north, parts of the provinces between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers – sometimes known as Argentine Mesopotamia (a section of which appears below, from the air) - were a flourishing wine-growing area, but political pressure from the Cuyo provinces (Mendoza and San Juan) eliminated the practice until recently.

Now, in the province of Entre Ríos, near the attractive riverside town of Colón (about 330 km north of Buenos Aires), Bodega Vulliez Sermet has begun to produce a variety of reds, including Tannat, under conditions similar to those in Uruguay. On the west bank of the Río Uruguay, Colón is considerably closer to Buenos Aires than Sierra de la Ventana, though still farther away than those in Uruguay itself. The photograph below is Colón's municipal tourism office, now housed in the historic riverside customs house.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to that part of Argentina, but it’s potentially a worthwhile stop for overland travelers en route to the wildlife-rich Iberá marshes or the thunderous cascades of Parque Nacional Iguazú. It’s also a possible detour from Gualeguaychú, the hearth of Argentine Carnaval (due to begin Saturday, January 10th).

There’s another winery, Corrales Vier, in the more westerly city of Victoria (about 340 km northwest of Buenos Aires). When a sommelier friend of mine tried to contact Vuillez and Corrales by email, though, neither one responded – although Vuillez makes a point of advertising its cabaña-style accommodations. He hasn’t seen wines from either one for sale in Buenos Aires, but did have a sample of Vuillez's at a tasting event several years ago.

Maybe these are mystery wines but, the next time I visit Colón or Victoria, I’ll make an effort to stop.

No W(h)ining? An Uncommon Tasting in Palermo

Mendoza is the heart of Argentina’s wine country, and one of my favorite destinations in the country. On my recent trip south, though, I barely got out of Buenos Aires and, so, a tasting trip to vineyards and wineries was out of the question. I had to look elsewhere.

In principle, there’s no reason not to grow wine grapes in the vicinity of Buenos Aires – to the best of my knowledge the nearest commercial Argentine vineyard is in Sierra de la Ventana, 550 km to the southwest, but there is a substantial cluster of wineries in nearby Uruguay, just a short hop across the River Plate. In fact, if I recall correctly, vineyards used to form something of a greenbelt on the Argentine capital’s outskirts, until the military dictatorship of 1976-83 uprooted them for highways and suburban sprawl.

That said, there are plenty of places to sample Argentine wines in the city, without even having to hear it through the grapevine. One of those is the Bar du Marché (pictured above), in the Palermo Hollywood area, which purports to have 50 different wines by the glass. It’s a place to which this blog will return in the near future, but in a behind-the-scenes manner that its façade does not even hint at.

In early November, shortly after arriving in Buenos Aires, I described my experience at Vinos de Lujo as a “wine-tasting free-for-all” that left me more overwhelmed than enlightened. Later in the month, though, I was able to attend a more manageable tasting at Anuva Wines that I found far more satisfying.

Founded by US resident Daniel Karlin, Anuva (pictured above; the name comes from combining the indefinite English article “an” with “uva,” the Spanish word for grape) is about a 20-block walk from my own Palermo apartment. The inconspicuous streetside door – two Brazilians arrived late because they walked past the entrance without recognising it - opens onto a lengthy staircase that reaches a spacious tasting room that’s also suitable for more formal events. During a previous stay in the city, I had dined here at El Tejano, a “closed doors” restaurant that now operates its own venue for Texas-style barbecue nearby.

Anuva is not a restaurant, but it does offer tapas paired with a selection of five wines at each tasting. All its wines come not from high-profile Mendoza producers like Catena Zapata and Santa Julia, but from smaller, lesser-known wineries that reflect the industry’s geographical diversity, including vintages from the northwestern Andes around Cafayate and from the Patagonian province of Neuquén.

Our own tasting, beginning around 7 p.m., began with a sparkling wine from Viña Las Perdices, in the Agrelo district a short distance north of Mendoza. I’m personally not a fan of sparkling wines, but our sommelier, a fluent English-speaking Argentine named Florencia Campicelli, pointed out that small bubbles characterize the best and, by that standard, Las Perdices passed the exam.

The next sample, a Mairena Torrontés preceded by a cracker with fresh-sliced pear, basil and a walnut, was more to my liking. Torrontés is Argentina’s signature white grape (we almost always have some in the fridge) and, this one, from the high-altitude vineyards around Cafayate, was typically aromatic. I’d buy this one, but I’m not sure how objective I am, as I’d try almost any Torrontés, especially when complemented by raspberry and lemon sorbets (pictured below).

From there, we proceeded to the reds, starting with a San Gimignano Malbec aged six months in French and American oak. Malbec is my favorite red – we even named our beloved Alaskan malamute after it – and this Mendoza vintage is a worthy one. The tasting finished with two others– the Amauta IV blend of Malbec, Cabernet and Syrah from Bodega El Porvenir of Cafayate (the only winery of this bunch that I know personally) and a Mairena Bonarda from Mendoza. The Bonarda’s acquiring a certain notoriety among connoisseurs here, but it’s got a ways to go before it catches up with Malbec.

Throughout, we snacked on paired cold cuts and cheeses, plus a savoury empanada, and finished with a sample of bittersweet chocolate truffles. By the time we finished the two-hour tasting, I was more than satisfied and, despite the fact that this was never supposed to be dinner, it was all I needed for the night.

I’ve avoided sommelier-speak here, partly because I find it opaque and partly because I know more about wine tourism than I do about wine itself – I know what I like to drink, but I don’t presume to impose my tastes on others. Still, Anuva provides a useful introduction for wine-lovers just getting to know the options in Argentina.

Given the fact that the five wines and tapas cost US$52, it’s fair to mention that you could sample more for less at some wine bars and, at wineries, you might spend even less. Many Argentine wineries charge little or nothing for tours and tasting though, of course, you have to get to Mendoza, Cafayate or Chañar first.

Anuva, of course, wants to sell wine as well, and has a wine club that will ship two, three or four bottles per month to your US address. Even so, their tastings are sociable experiences, soft-sell events at which they will not pressure you to join.