WINE, WOMEN & A SONG

Okay, it's confession time: I couldn't care less about wine. I know that I prefer white to red, but that's as far as my knowledge goes. I can't really tell the difference between Merlot and Pinot, and I wouldn't recognize a Malbec if I woke up in bed with one. Basically, I just drink what's in the glass. Despite my general apathy when it comes to wine, I rarely pass up the opportunity to go wine tasting. And as I discovered in January when I spent three days at a wine lodge/resort in Mendoza, I've got a pretty good nose for wine scents.

But truth be told, I could live without sniffing the mysterious liquid contents of those little flavored vials. For me, wine tasting is all about the company. As more bottles are opened and the group gets tipsier, it's almost like being at an intimate house party. Last night I attended a private wine tasting at the invitation of my Time Out Buenos Aires editor (she's the one to my right in the photo above), and I had such a great time that I ended up staying about two hours longer than I'd intended to. Who knew there were so many cool native English speakers in Buenos Aires? I spent at least the first year of my 21 months here avoiding them like the plague because I thought they detracted from the real BA experience. Silly me.

As for the learning part, my most interesting discovery at the tasting involved not wine but the horse I had seen earlier that afternoon carrying a cart of plywood through the streets of my Palermo Hollywood neighborhood. Apparently, it wasn't as unusual as I had thought at the time. (I'm still wondering where all these horses are stored, so if anyone has any information, please pass it on.) I would have posted a picture, but when I stumbled upon the scene I was returning from my Pilates class and didn't have my camera with me. Of course, now that I know it's a relatively common sight in BA, I'll probably be seeing horse laborers everywhere. Stay tuned.

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