An Argentina App for the Asking

Some weeks ago, I reported on the updated version of my Argentina Travel Adventures app for both iOS and Android platforms. At present I find myself with several Apple redemption codes on the point of expiration and, thus, I would like to give them away to readers of this blog. With suggested itineraries, plus details of sights and services, it’s the ideal tool for planning for your vacation to Buenos Aires and beyond (including a suggested side trip to Uruguay).

The app in question works on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch; if you already own the app, you can upgrade free of charge, so there’s no need to ask for a code in this instance. Unfortunately, Google Play does not allow promotional giveaways, so Android users are out of luck (though you Androiders can purchase the app for a modest US$2.99).

Unlike my book giveaways, there will be no quiz, however simple, to determine the winners. All you need do is write me at the following email address: southerncone (at) mac.com. The first three readers to ask will receive the app free of charge. Please do so soon, as the codes will expire within a few days.

Uruguay by the Bay? Tasting Tannat in San Francisco

Several years ago, after first discovering Uruguayan wines in a San Francisco event, I visited the Montevideo wine district as I incorporated coastal Uruguay into the excursions chapter of Moon Handbooks Buenos Aires. I also incorporated my experience into an article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle travel section, and have revisited the area several times, getting to know many of the local wineries and their owners. Not until Thursday, though, had they come to visit me – in a manner of speaking, at least.

That is, for the first time in recent memory. After stops in Washington DC and Austin, Wines of Uruguay finished up a US trade and press tour in the Presidio of San Francisco with an introductory seminar and an extended tasting session with 15 different Uruguayan wineries, mostly from Montevideo with a couple outliers from Carmelo and the vicinity of Punta del Este.

Of the 15, I had visited nine of them and, despite the elapsed time, most of their representatives recognized me immediately – Uruguay’s wine industry is a family affair, and all the tours I have taken were led by family members. I have stayed in regular contact with winery owners like Carlos and Ana Pizzorno (pictured above) and Eduardo Pisano (below), who greeted me almost like a relative.

The brief seminar featured Uruguayan vintner Francisco Carrau, who has sequenced the Tannat genome, sommelier Gilles de Chambure, and consultant David Furer, all of whom helped put Uruguayan wines – most notably Tannat - in context. For an audience whose experience of the country was limited, there were general accounts of the country’s Bordeaux-ish climate and terroir, its soil diversity, the history of Tannat’s 19th-century importation from the French Pyrenees, and its appeal to high-profile winemakers such as Paul Hobbs and Michel Rolland.

The presenters compared the Uruguayans with Oregon vineyards in terms of their hands-on production, rather than industrial scale (if I recall correctly, Chile’s Concha y Toro conglomerate produces more wine than all of Uruguay). Uruguayan wineries are family-owned, but innovative, offering some creative blends with Tempranillo and Pinot Noir, for example, and uncommon whites such as Albariño (most common in Spain’s Rías Baixas). They are upgrading their expertise at leading-edge institutions like the University of California at Davis.

There followed several hours of tasting and conversation, as some of the wineries sought local distributors, but the consensus was that this was the most successful stop on the tour. I am far from having the enological expertise of the wine professionals here, but I found several I would be pleased to repeat and, at very competitive prices, they’re worth taking a chance on. In defense of my own shortcomings, I can only repeat a story I heard some years ago when a musician criticized a reviewer who, he said, knew nothing about playing the guitar. In response, the reviewer said tartly, “You mean I gotta play guitar to know how to buy records?”

The Uruguayans may have a lower profile than their Argentine and Chilean neighbors, but they have a great deal to be proud of. I should be returning to the theme of Uruguayan wines, with more detail, in the near future.

Braniff's "Beautiful Buenos Aires," in the 1950s

More than 30 years ago, the first time I ever went to Buenos Aires, I flew from Santiago with the now defunct Braniff. That was barely a year before the company closed in 1982 but, at one time, Braniff was a prestige airline that pioneered many South American routes and even called itself the “Conquistador del Cielo” (Conqueror of the Skies).

Memories of my own first visit resurfaced when I stumbled upon Braniff’s video of “Beautiful Buenos Aires,” dating from the 1950s. Given the orderly optimism that pervades it, I’m guessing it’s the early 1950s, certainly prior to the so-called “Revolución Libertadora” that overthrew president Juan Domingo Perón in September of 1955.

In the eight-minute film, streetcars still operate downtown, private automobiles occupy parking spots directly in front of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, and architectural landmarks such as the Obelisco, the Bank of Boston, the Edificio Kavanagh, the Plaza Hotel and the US Embassy (now the ambassador’s residence) are conspicuous. Astonishingly, though, the narrator (presumably reading a scriptwriter’s words) misidentifies the Palacio de las Aguas Corrientes (the waterworks popularly known as “Obras Sanitarias”) as the Correo Central, the central post office that's now being recycled as a cultural center. As my photographs above and below show, the two don’t look much alike.

Braniff tried, though, to attract its clients with promises of premium shopping on Florida street – like “the featured street in a block party” with “practically everything the civilized world has for sale” after its closure to automobile traffic at 3 p.m. every afternoon. Today, of course, Florida and several other downtown streets are permanent pedestrian malls, but it’s no longer the elite shopping paradise it once was – partly but not exclusively because of Argentina’s current import restrictions.

To escape the crowded central city, of course, Buenos Aires had the open spaces of Palermo and the world’s largest man-made swimming pool for 100,000 bathers (something I had never heard of, though La Salada and Ezeiza are possible candidates).

One segment that shocked me, though, was that Buenos Aires was said to be the world’s only large city without traffic lights, “as pedestrians considered that to be violation of their civil rights and “heaven help the driver of a vehicle who claims right of way over them…” Instead, police on elevated pedestals directed traffic.

Once, about 20 years ago in the northern city of San Miguel de Tucumán, I had to talk my way out of a ticket for unintentionally disobeying one of those elevated traffic cops, who were an anachronism even then. Today, anybody who accepted at face value Braniff’s assertion that Buenos Aires drivers would respect pedestrians would, like Braniff itself, probably not survive to catch the flight home.

Who Is an "American?" What's In a Name?

Recently, in the online magazine Slate, author Chris Kirk published a rant about the propriety of United States citizens calling their country “America.” In particular, he called out South Americans for complaining that those of us in the US too readily appropriate a term that, in their opinion, applies to the entire Western Hemisphere.

That may sound xenophobic on his part, but I can see the point. Words can have multiple definitions and, while using “America” as a synonym for the United States may sound myopic, there’s no alternative that rolls as easily off the tongue. Prestigious international journals, such as The Economist, readily use it as a synonym for the United States. Much depends on context.

Still, “America” is a loaded term, a Europeanism that derives from the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci. To Spanish speakers, “América” comprises both North and South America, as the album cover of the late Argentine rock singer Sandro might suggest. In English, I would normally use “the Americas” if referring to the entire hemisphere.

For my own part, though, whenever anybody asks my nationality, I would never say “American.” Nor would I say norteamericano (“North American”), because that’s an ambiguous term that could apply equally well to Canadians, Mexicans, and even Frenchmen (the French overseas territory of St. Pierre et Miquelon is 2,373 miles from Brest, but surrounded by Canadian waters only 12 miles from the coast of Newfoundland).

Rather, I would usually say I am from California, and let them fill in the blanks, but that might be more difficult if I came from a lower-profile state such as Delaware or Nebraska. If they ask where I was born, I say “North Dakota” and, when that elicits a puzzled response, I add “Fargo” which, among cinema-goers (especially Argentines), gets me some notoriety.

Argentina, for what it’s worth, is the only country I know whose name can be applied to individuals – Julio Argentino Roca (pictured above) was its 14th president. That, it seems to me, takes nationalism to the extreme. On the other hand, I can’t ever recall having seen the feminine form “Argentina” as a personal name, though my wife tells me a distant relative of hers went by that name, but it's now considered archaic. In other countries, to mention a few examples, I have never heard of anybody named "Chileno," "Uruguayo," "Brasileiro" or anything similar.

There is, of course, the US actress América Ferrera who, however, comes from a Honduran background. Sandro, for his part, broadened the claim of his album cover - "Sandro of America" - by playing Madison Square Garden; to the best of my knowledge, though, he never made it to Canada or St. Pierre et Miquelon.

Visual Baires, From Palermo to La Boca

Over the weekend, I received an unexpected email from my nephew Juan Massolo, whose first public exhibition of photographs will go on display tonight (Tuesday, September 3) in the Buenos Aires barrio of Palermo. I have no first-hand knowledge about the T-Bone Bar & Grill where the exhibition will take place, but the menu looks rather more diverse than the name would suggest, as it also offers tapas, sandwiches, fish and seafood, and a diversity of pastas. Oddly, while wine glasses feature prominently in their own photographs, the website does not include a wine list.

In any event, Juan’s work will adorn their walls until Sunday, October 27 so, if you’re in the Argentine capital, please drop by for a look. So far as I know, no consumption is required.

From the Theater to the Screen? “We Came from Far Away”

One of my favorite Buenos Aires experiences is the Teatro Catalinas Sur, a community theater group in the barrio of La Boca, which has a repertory of works that it sometimes repeats (and updates). One of those is Venimos de Muy Lejos (“We Came from Far Away”), a musical theater take on the Argentine immigrant experience that’s also filled with politically inspired satire (or, alternatively, satirically inspired politics). Still, it manages to avoid overdoing the polemics and topicality to focus on more enduring themes.

Now, apparently, Venimos de Muy Lejos is making the transition to the big screen under the direction of Ricky Piterbarg, about whom I know next to nothing – until now, Catalinas Sur has operated under the professional direction of Adhemar Bianchi, even though the performers themselves are (skilled) amateurs who even collect tickets and usher spectators to their seats. At their own theater, though, Catalinas Sur provides a libretto that lets even monolingual visitors under what’s going on (though they provide plenty of visual cues as well).

If Venimos de Muy Lejos makes it to English-speaking cinema audiences, the libretto obviously won’t work, and rendering the subtitles understandable from lunfardo (Buenos Aires street slang) will be challenge. Again, though, the cast’s sheer joy and skill in performing should cover any possible shortcomings. Several trailers have been posted to YouYube but, unfortunately, when I try to open them I get an error message. I’ll keep trying, though, and suggest that you do so as well.