Argentine Wine & Tapas: Aperitivo Experience in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires does not start the evening with wine. It starts with vermouth, over ice, topped from a soda siphon, standing at a bar with a glass in your hand and dinner still hours away. Skip that and you have skipped the point of the night.

So this starts at the bar. Vermouth, ice, siphon, a toast, and the story of how a hundred years of Italian immigration turned into a country full of vermuterías. From there you walk the salon and go up to the cellar before heading up to your table, which is where the next hour happens.

Three glasses, one region at a time. Torrontés and Criolla first, and they are the only endemic grapes to Argentina. Then Malbec, the French arrival that found its country. Two grapes Argentina made and one it adopted. Tapas come with every pour, boxes of soil from each region go hand to hand around the table, and nobody is quizzed on anything.

It closes with a round of wine myths worth arguing about and a table vote on the favourite.

Two hours, ten guests at most, English or Spanish. You leave loose, fed a little, and pointed at the rest of your evening rather than finished for the night.