Bonarda from Argentina

Las Moras Black Label Bonarda is one of our favourite Argentinian wines. I first encountered it last year, at the supermarket down the street, where we used to live in Sao Paulo. It was selling at a small discount to its original price of 54 BRL (16 Euros at today's exchange rate) and the lady in charge of the wine section had insisted I snap it to take advantage of the 'too good an offer' when I enquired about buying good South American wines.

It was our first Bonarda. Neither Emilio nor I were familiar with the varietal and it was only recently that I researched and discovered that there are in fact many grapes called Bonardas and that the Argentine Bonarda originated from the Savoie Region in Eastern France (incidentally only about 415km away from Basel, where we are living now). The Argentine version is widely stated as being similar to the Chabono in California but different to the three types of Italian Bonardas grown in North Central and North West Italy. It was apparently, the most planted grape in Argentina until this decade when it was overtaken by Malbec.

The Malbec is pretty good too

The Bonarda we like tasted like a fruity Malbec that was a little bit lighter bodied. It was easy to pair with dinner or snacks so naturally, I continued to buy it whenever I went back to the supermarket until the day arrived that I could no longer find it on the shelves (!) - not unlike my experience of bulk-buying lactose free milk for Baby Koala. The lady promoting the wine had disappeared and I could not ask her whether we had consumed all their available stocks so I tweaked our consumption pattern and started bulk-buying the Las Moras Black Label Malbec instead  (illustrated above) - which we also liked and subsequently brought back with us to Spain and Switzerland.

The bodega which produces the Las Moras Black Label range is called Finca Las Moras and is situated in the high altitude region of San Juan, in the Northwest of Argentina. The region is the second largest wine producer after Mendoza and is irrigated by the water coming down from the Andes Mountains. It was a shame that we did not have the opportunity to explore any of the bodegas in Latin America. Oh well, here's hoping we will be able to remedy this when we return for a holiday!