San Telmo is a neighborhood of Buenos Aires well known to every tourist that visits for its Sunday street fair and tango shows in the streets.We should have known then that a wine with its namesake, despite being grown in the Mendoza region, would be very mediocre. Actually, we did know, but we figured we should try it anyhow to generate a base-line Malbec for our tongues.
It’s a very basic wine that’s not very balanced and feels heavy in the mouth. Across the street from our apartment there is a butcher and vegetable store. We’ve slowly been learning the cuts of meat in spanish, and determined that we were buying two New York Strips. Surprisingly, they don’t call it that here. Oddly, it’s named after a sausage. The value was undeniably better in the steak than wine.
Today, we walked the 2+ miles across the city to reach MALBA, Buenos Aires’ contemporary art museum. On the long walk back, we stopped into one of the ubiquitous neighborhood wine bar/cafes. We snuck in some 187 ml bottles of Santa Julia espumante which were mighty refreshing, along with a plate of mozzarella and a bowl of peanuts. It’s hard to make it from lunch to the late-late-dinners of Buenos Aires without an evening snack. We also picked up some recommended bottles for the coming nights. Stay tuned.
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