Anuva Wines

Palermo is the spot for the cool kids. Everyone raves about the scene, restaurants and replica house of St. Martin. Then there’s wine. It’s everywhere, but tastings are not. If visiting Buenos Aires with no plan to make it to Mendoza, during your trip, Anuva is the way to go.
Anuva is essentially the only tasting in Buenos Aires but it was very good. It is a very intimate setting. There are 12 people at each session. When you arrive at what looks like a door to someone’s house, you are buzzed in and you ascend a flight of stairs to your landing pad for the evening. There were two tables of six with stemware and paper and pencil at each placement. As with any tasting of this type, each wine is paired with a light bite to compliment the varietal. The food items are brought on a tray large enough for each table so it is shared with your five other table mates.
Varietals? Did you say varietals? Yes, I did. … When most connoisseurs here Argentinean wine, the first word you will here thereafter is Malbec. And rightfully so. Surprisingly, at the tasting, we also sampled non-​Malbec wines made in the country and they were very good too.
After the tasting you are given information about purchasing any of the wines you sampled. If you purchased a case of wine, the shipping is free. Personally, I found their prices to be high in light of the costs of the same bottles elsewhere in Buenos Aires. However, shipping is probably the big ticket item so absent having an extra suitcase and no baggage fee, it is the best to buy from them. If you don’t, you can definitely enjoy the same wines at restaurants during your stay.

Anuva Wines has a monopoly on the wine tasting market in Buenos Aires. There is nothing else like it, so you don’t really have a choice if it’s something that you want to do. We tried to attend a wine tasting offered by a hotel in Palermo the night before, and it was canceled sometime during the 15 minutes that we were walking from our hotel to the wine tasting (our hotel had called ahead and made reservations). And some of the other places we called seemed to have a wishy washy answer as to what time the tasting was and whether or not they had space (if we «came now» they could fit us in but not sure about what time it would be the next day…). So, the only reliable place to taste wines is Anuva. Which is why they can charge $ 52 for a tasting.
Everything here is conducted in US Dollars and they have a strict reservation requirement (which includes a $ 52 deposit per reservation). They also have a strict start time (since the other people in the group will be waiting on you if you are late). About the highest level of organization I came across while in Buenos Aires. Reservations are made online and a detailed confirmation email is sent out — make sure to read those directions carefully because it is hard to find (there is an unmarked black door; you need to push a button to have someone come down and open the door for you).
Our 6 pm tasting included light bites as pairing that left us hungry for dinner immediately after, but not hungry enough for a large dinner.
The loft and the pairing were lovely, and the sommelier was very knowledgeable.
The tasting included a sparkling white, white, and 3 reds (with as many refills as you like, but be careful, as I got quite tipsy).
LAS PERDICES Extra Brut (sparkling white) paired with a Crostini
MAREINA Torrontes (white) paired with strawberry and mango sorbet
The 3 reds are served together:
MAREINE Bonarda — paired with a meat and cheese plate
SAN GIAMIGNANO Syrah Roble — paired with a beef emapanda
CARINAE FNCA DENEZA Malbec — paired with dark chocolate
The experience was great — the loft beautiful and everything presented well, BUT I did not love any of the wines. The sommelier seems to have «moved on «from Malbecs but for most of us, we have not yet moved on and probably would have liked to try more than one Malbec. We bought a couple bottles on his recommendation, but discovered we had been ripped off when we got to duty free (we paid $ 39 for a $ 22 bottle) so be careful of that. He recommended a dinner spot to us (Freud & Fahler) and said his friend would take care of us when we got there, but his friend didn’t actually work there anymore. Oops. It was okay, but not great.
So all in all, it was a fun experience that I enjoyed, but it didn’t help me discover any new wines (or restaurants).