My 2021

BY JOAQUÍN HIDALGO | DECEMBER 21, 2021

I started out this year trying my hand at fiction once again. I began a long story featuring a lemon tree in a garden not unlike mine, but set back in the 1940s, as well as a series of interweaving plot lines that track the tumultuous history of Argentina at that time. 

Along the way, I learned of a botanical disease with a rather poetic name: “the sadness of the lemon tree,” a fungus that attacks the trunk of the tree, sapping the strength of the cheery, fragrant plant. It’s not unlike a mortal condition suffered by grape vines all over the world that goes by the rather less evocative moniker of Pierce’s disease.  

Fiction and disease, I now realize, were the dominant themes of 2021: in this dramatic corner of the planet, one often finds oneself taken on an apocalyptic roller-coaster ride in which the world looks as though it’s going to end on a Friday, but by the following Monday everything is back to normal, ready for the next unexpected twist. So, one fine Tuesday in July, when I, like the vast majority of my compatriots, eagerly went to get my first COVID-19 shot, I should have known that wouldn’t be the end of it. Still, the last thing I expected was to get the disease pretty much simultaneously with the vaccination.

I’d taken all the precautions more typical of someone in fragile health, canceling work trips, meetings and social gatherings, but on that fateful Tuesday, I felt as though the world was opening back up. This turned out to be another fiction. With renewed confidence in my resilience, I attended a lunch, following which I began to develop a temperature. Later I learned that I’d passed the virus on to a couple of colleagues. By the following Friday, I had been thrust into a feverish ordeal that would last a fortnight: the virus and vaccination had combined to torch my immune system, paving the way for vigorous pneumonia in both lungs. With the help of industrial quantities of corticosteroids and anti-inflammatories, I eventually came out the other side, but not without losing 15 pounds and ending up so weak I could barely get out of bed.   

Throughout that period, I kept thinking back to an uncomfortable phone call I’d had with my insurance broker when I turned 40. He informed me that I was now of an age to contract a decent life insurance policy, and advised me to add a clause covering me in the event of loss of livelihood. That way, if the worst were to happen – his exact words – I’d have a safety net. Now, it felt like an implausibly ironic plot twist. At the time that I developed the fever, I had a thousand bottles yet to taste and an Argentina report to write, among several other work commitments. And in my delirium, I began to wonder whether it wouldn’t be better if I just lost my sense of smell and collected on the insurance instead of plunging into that daunting array of bottles the moment I’d got my breath back. But my sense of smell remained stubbornly intact. And because of this, as I lay in bed, I found immense consolation in the bright yellow lemons I could see in the garden from my bedside whose aroma always helped to keep my darkest thoughts at bay.

A month later I was able to get back to work and, eventually, fulfill my commitments. Ever since, I have felt renewed appreciation for the world of scents in which we live. I know that after suffering the disease, many people have struggled to recover their sense of smell; many others never came through it at all, and I feel deeply for them and their loved ones.

The Ligier cellar, which contains over 400,000 bottles dating back to the 1970s, boasts some rare treasures. Around 600 intact cases of each vintage since then still remain. The corks in the photo are from a comparative tasting of Luigi Bosca Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec from 1985 and 1995 held on December 14. 

Lovely Wines

This year I tasted around 3,000 wines from Argentina and Chile for my reports for Vinous and other publications in Argentina. I think that important things are happening in South America. I believe that it is appropriate these days to talk about the Terroirs of the Andes – a continuous territory on either side of the monumental range, beginning in the west with the Pacific and the Coastal Ridge and moving east into the pre-Andean ridges and through to the sierras of the Pampas. This region offers a range of experiences of which I have been a privileged observer, and although 2021 was hardly the best year for winery visits – I couldn’t go to Chile at all, for instance – I was able to taste some stunning wines.  

Two-thousand twenty-one was a red-letter year for sparkling wines. In Chile, Tatie, made in Limarí, and in Argentina, Baron B Héritage from Tupungato (the latter only released last October and so not yet reported on for Vinous) promise to turn the South American sparkling wine scene upside down.

This year Malbec left me convinced that the revolution in its style has only just begun. Wines like the 2018 Michelini i Mufatto La Cautiva, 2019 Adrianna Vineyard Riverstone, 2018 Piedra Infinita  and 2019 Buscado Vivo o Muerto La Verdad are wonderful examples of the new movement. These reds convey a powerful sense of place and universal appeal, and they left me eagerly anticipating the new developments to come. 

The Cabernet Sauvignons of Chile are the best you’ll find in South America, presenting genuine pedigree. That was my conclusion after tasting the iconic 2019 Viñedo Chadwick, 2018 Don Melchor and 2018 Casa Real, although there are more than a handful of other very precisely made reds out there to discover, such as 2017 Le Dix, 2017 DOM  and 2016 Altazor. These are wines that leave you both thirsty for more and picturing how good they’ll be in several years’ time. 

But it was looking beyond the classics where I had the most fun in both Chile and Argentina. Maule and Itata and their coastal regions haven’t yet received their full due, but they’re expanding the range of Chilean flavors with their Carignans, País and Cinsaults. When I was writing my report in March this year, I had an unusual sensation every time I opened a new bottle of these blends and varietals; I was eager with anticipation, as though I were standing on the prow of a ship staring out at the horizon. Some of the producers I enjoyed most from the region include Garage Wine Co, P. S. García, Bouchon and Gillmore Wines.

In Argentina, meanwhile, I was most surprised by the wealth of new ideas. Two-thousand twenty-one on this side of the Andes introduced a number of fascinating new projects and styles – so much so that in December, we found the venerable old DOC of Luján de Cuyo relaunching itself in an effort to get back to the future. We’ll be reporting on how the move goes next year.