The immigrants who built the cellars
How Italian and Spanish families turned a remote desert province into the wine country it is today.
Pillar Guide — Culture & Stories
Culture & stories
The long human story behind every Argentine glass — the immigrations, the families, the gaucho, the songs.
The vineyards came with people. The first cuttings were planted by Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century. The grape varieties that shape the country today arrived in waves — with Italian and Spanish families fleeing poverty, with French agronomists answering government invitations, with German engineers who came to build railways and stayed for the bread.
What follows is the human side of Argentine wine. Profiles of winemakers, dispatches from harvest, essays on the cultural rituals around the bottle — tango, the long Sunday lunch, the meticulous craft of mate. Full pieces are in the works.
What we will be writing about
A morning with a third-generation winemaker
What it means to inherit a vineyard, and what it costs to change one.
The gaucho, the horse, the long table
The traditions of the Argentine countryside, and how they still shape the way the country eats and drinks.
Mate, before everything else
The herb, the gourd, the metal straw. The most quietly Argentine ritual of all.
The Calchaquí people and the highland vine
The valleys of Salta were shaped by indigenous communities long before they grew wine. Their story is part of every glass.
Buenos Aires after dark
A night-time map of the city's most considered wine bars — from Palermo to San Telmo.