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.

The Uruguayan Sacraments: Tango & Mate

Over more than three decades of work and travel in Latin America, this is one of my least favorite times of the year. That’s partly because, as I’m usually in South America from late October or early November, I’m anticipating a spring return home in time for the baseball season, but also because Semana Santa (“Holy Week”) holidays present an obstacle to updating guidebooks – many offices and services are closed, and high hotel occupancy rates make things more expensive, at least for a few days.

It’s also because the whole Holy Week story is such a grim and morbid tale even when, as in Guatemala (which I used to cover for Moon Handbooks), it can also be an extremely colorful event. That’s one reason why secular Uruguay, which does not officially recognize Holy Week is such a breath of fresh air – there, ever since 1919, it’s been Semana de Turismo (Tourism Week) . To be sure, there are plenty of churches in the country (such as Colonia's Iglesia Matriz, above), but President José Mujica put things in perspective the other week when he and his wife Lucía Topolansky declined to travel to Rome for the appointment of the new Pope Francis.

According to Topolansky, as quoted by Buenos Aires Económico, “We are not believers,” though Mujica’s vice-president Danilo Astori did travel to Italy. Continuing on the theme, Topolansky emphasized that “Uruguay is an absolutely secular country…In that we are different from the rest of Latin America. We hold a great respect, there is freedom of religion... Since the vice-president is a believer, the president thought it more appropriate for him to travel.” In another interview, Mujica added that the only things he had in common with the new Pope were “tango and mate,” the bitter herbal tea that both Argentines and Uruguayans sip in prodigious quantities (as suggested in the photograph above, from the Buenos Aires suburb of Tigre).

Moon Handbooks Chile, in Los Altos

In exactly two weeks – Tuesday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m., to be precise – I will offer a digital slide presentation on Chile in the Los Altos Library (13 S. San Antonio Road, Los Altos 94024, tel. 650/948-7683). Coverage will also include the Chilean Pacific Islands of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Juan Fernández (Robinson Crusoe), as well as southernmost Argentina (Tierra del Fuego and the vicinity of El Calafate) that appear in the book. I will also be available to answer questions about Argentina and Buenos Aires. The presentation is free of charge, but books will be available for purchase.

A Trip to Tigre

When Porteños want to get out of Buenos Aires, the closest option is the suburb of Tigre, the gateway to the Paraná delta. Barely half an hour from downtown’s Retiro station, Tigre is a riverside greenbelt city that’s the terminus of the Mitre railroad, a commuter line for the Argentine capital’s prosperous northern suburbs. It’s quick and cheap to get there - believe it or not, the fare to Tigre is 1.35 pesos, approximately 35 US cents!

My Thursday excursion, though, started from the barrio of Belgrano, whose station is closer to my own Palermo apartment. I made a stopover at Béccar, five stops south of Tigre, to see Villa Ocampo (pictured here), the country home of writer Victoria Ocampo (1890-1979). Ocampo, born to wealth and privilege, created the literary journal Sur and entertained world-class writers, including Graham Greene, Federico García Lorca, and André Malraux here, not to mention her own countrymen such as Jorge Luis Borges and novelist Adolfo Bioy Casares (married to Ocampo’s sister Silvina, a poet).

Open to the public, now a museum and cultural center, Villa Ocampo is a Belle Epoque house built by her parents on an enormous lot that once stretched all the way to the river. Today, the grounds are much reduced - though most of us would still consider the gardens enormous - and it’s only a seven-block walk through wooded streets from the train station. It’s best, though, to time any visit for a guided tour, as self-guided visitors may only see the ground level - the first floor, where Ocampo herself slept and her distinguished guests had their own spacious rooms, is otherwise off-limits.

In Tigre, meanwhile, my primary goal was to visit the new Museo de Arte Tigre (MAT), occupying the spectacularly restored Tigre Club (pictured here, dating from 1913). Though it once housed a hotel and casino, it now displays figurative works by Argentine artists from the late 19th to the 20th century, stressing but specializing in landscapes, portraits, and still lifes linked to Tigre. The first-floor terrace that extends to the riverside offers great rivers of the river and its parkland.

Artists represented include major figures such as Antonio Berni, Benito Quinquela Martín, and Juan Carlos Castagnino, but it also holds special thematic exhibits. Currently, it’s hosting a series of three dimensional pieces by “Artistas Plásticos Solidarios en el Mes de la Memoria” (Plastic Artists in Solidarity in the Month of Memory), memorializing the victims of Argentina’s 1976 coup and subsequent “Dirty War” in conjunction the March 24th anniversary, now a holiday for reflection - and protest - in the country.

I’ve not even mentioned my favorite Tigre-area destination, the bedrock island of Martín García, a full-day excursion reached by Cacciola catamaran from Tigre. Once a penal colony, Martín García is still a halfway house for prisoners from Buenos Aires province, but it’s also home to lush gallery forests and some unexpected architectural masterpieces - such as its rococo theater (pictured here).

Catamaran to Carmelo: Whys and Wines of Uruguay

Over the weekend somebody asserted, in my presence, that there were some 40,000 Americans living in Buenos Aires. How exact that figure might be, neither he nor I really knew, but the fact is that many thousands of foreigners, Americans and many other nationalities, have chosen to live in this city as Argentina has rebounded from its political and economic implosion of 2001-2.

Many of those are, if not technically illegal immigrants, at least somewhat irregular. For most nationalities, Argentina does not require an advance visa, though it does limit stays to 90 consecutive days, renewable for another 90 days at immigration offices or the Policía Federal in the provinces (at a cost of about US$80 and the patience to spend a day standing in line). After that, visitors still need only cross the border to a neighboring country - Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay or Uruguay - and return for another 90 days. Some don’t even bother with that, overstaying and paying a fine on departure.

For those based in Buenos Aires, as I am, the easiest escape is Uruguay, as the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Colonia del Sacramento is only an hour across the River Plate by catamaran, making it easy to depart and return in the same day. A day in Colonia is far pleasanter than a day battling the bureaucracy in Buenos Aires, but it can also be cheaper.

Last week, as my visa was expiring, I spent the day in Uruguay but, instead of Colonia, I chose to visit the town of Carmelo, reached by Cacciola catamaran from the northerly Buenos Aires suburb of Tigre. Tigre’s almost 30 km north of Buenos Aires, but Cacciola provides free bus transfers that get you there in time for the 8:30 a.m. departure that gets you to Carmelo (about 75 km west of Colonia) by noon (Uruguayan time, which is an hour later than Argentina). Some years ago, Cacciola operated small launches that navigated the Paraná delta’s scenic channels, but today’s high-speed catamaran gets you there about an hour faster, over open water.

While in Carmelo, I revisited places that appear in the current edition of Moon Buenos Aires, but also visited some new sites, most notably Bodega Irurtia, the area’s most noteworthy winery, for a tour and tasting. Uruguay’s underrated wines, especially its rich red Tannat, are well worth a try; Irurtia’s handsome brick cellars, where local cheeses and snacks accompany a generous tasting, are well worth a stop. By the time my tour was over, around 7 p.m., it was almost time to return to the docks for the catamaran back to Tigre, where Argentine immigration duly stamped my passport for another 90 days.

This post, by the way, does not intend to imply that Uruguay is only worthwhile as a place to renew your visa. After the first of the month, I'll be crossing the river again to spend a couple weeks or so in Colonia, Montevideo, and Punta del Este.

The Southern Cone's Hostel Boom

Last month The New York Times travel section, in its inimitably Eurocentric manner, pointed out how hostels have become an increasingly viable option for anyone who wants to travel overseas on a budget - but without having to hassle with snorers and other nuisances in a dorm with a dozen bunks. It’s true that traveling in the Southern Cone countries is generally cheaper than Europe but, in any event, hostels in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay often are better options than higher-priced one, two, or even three-star hotels (it’s worth adding that “star categories” here are less meaningful than they might be in Europe).

Many Southern Cone hostels belong to Hostelling International (especially in Argentina), but others (especially in Chile) are independents, sometimes loosely organized affiliates that do not require membership (non-members pay slightly higher prices at HI hostels). In addition to private rooms, often very stylish, they even have amenities that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago - Puerto Iguazú’s Hostel Inn Iguazú, for instance, has an enormous outdoor swimming pool ideal for cooling off after an excursion to the subtropical heat and humidity of Parque Nacional Iguazú and its thundering falls. It sister hostel, the Marcopolo Inn Náutico, occupies a site in the Río Paraná delta, so secluded that it’s hard to believe it’s barely an hour from Buenos Aires (which has many fine hostels in its own right), and offers kayaks for its guests.

The trendsetter among Chile’s independent hostels is Pucón’s Hostería ¡Ecole! (pictured here), which opened in 1994, but many others have followed its example. My personal favorite is Talca’s Casa Chueca, which also conducts tours into some of the most scenic, and undervisited, parts of the Chilean Andes. Santiago’s La Casa Roja is, to my knowledge, the only hostel in the Southern Cone with a swimup bar and a batting cage (suitable for cricket or baseball).

Patagonia, especially on the Argentine side, has abundant hostels that are remarkably stylish, such as El Calafate’s Hostel del Glaciar Libertador and América del Sur Hostel. In the shadow of Cerro Fitz Roy, El Chaltén’s Albergue Patagonia (pictured here) has recently added some of the most beautifully simple rooms in Patagonia's "trekking capital."

For some of the best options in Chile, check the websites of Backpackers Best and Backpackers Chile, both of which are misleadingly named - almost all of them will meet the expectations of surprisingly demanding guests. In Argentina, try the national affiliate of Hostelling International and, across the Río de la Plata, Hostelling Uruguay.

The Mississippi of the Megalopolis

Last Friday morning I took a train north to the town of Tigre and, with my friend Cristián Soler (whom I met ten years ago in Tierra del Fuego), we took his father's boat to explore the channels of the Paraná delta. Tigre, in its early 20th century heyday, was the place where Buenos Aires's elite hung out and was home to numerous rowing clubs; Cristián's father's boat is a rowing scull damaged in an accident and then modified to support an outboard motor. Because of its shallow draft, it's ideal for exploring the delta's smallest channels, but when it goes out onto the Paraná de las Palmas and big freighters pass, the waves make me a little anxious.

The Paraná, which with the Río Uruguay forms the Río de la Plata (River Plate), is one of the world's great river systems. Winding nearly 4,000 km from its source in Brazil, it's longer than the Mississippi, which is probably its best analogue. Imagine the Mississippi delta and its bayous within 30 minutes of New York City, and you get some idea of the economic significance of the Paraná, and the recreational resources it provides, in proximity to Buenos Aires.

In a long day, leaving Tigre around 10 a.m., we spent about eight hours exploring the delta's smaller arroyos in what is called the Primera Sección, a relatively accessible part where many Porteños have summer homes but isleños (as the permanent residents are called) have more rustic residences on palafitos (pilings or stilts). The difference between the two is not always clear--in the place in the photograph to your right, for instance, a once handsome house has gone to seed and the soil it stands on may soon wash away. In all likelihood, some isleños will stay there until it slides into the river. Meanwhile, they'll eke out a living growing fruit, cutting timber, and producing crafts for the Mercado de Frutos in Tigre.

The delta is full of wildlife--plenty of birds, plus capybaras (Rottweiler-sized rodents) and even otters, but the bigger animals are in remote areas and harder to spot. The most abundant wildlife, at times at least, are the mosquitos that attack anyone who steps on land, so carry repellent. It's also full of accommodations, ranging from a modestly priced but excellent hostel Marcopolo Inn Náutico to the luxury La Becasina lodge. On the weekends, the delta's packed with people who come to spend a day at riverside beaches and enjoy a barbecue at its campgrounds or restaurants, but the rest of the time it's as if there's hardly anyone around.