A Torrontes an O'Hara Could Love

If a rustic French red is a wine of passion, then an elegant, floral Torrontes is the wine of romance. The beautiful Torrontes grape is little known and somewhat hard to come by around here, but this charming vine, well known in Argentina, is one of the most pleasant wines I've tasted. Highly aromatic, its appeal for me is in the strong bouquet, bursting with aromas of muscadine grapes and fresh flowers; the fragrance of hot summer nights in Georgia. It's wonderful to sip all on its own as an aperitif, though it goes quite well with many foods; grilled seafood, pasta, spicy sausage, or spinach pie. We drank some with Indian Samosas and it was an intricate and refreshing mix of tastes and smells. Sipped all by itself, it was heavenly. I was transported from my front stoop in Brooklyn to a front porch swing somewhere in the memories of childhood; crickets chirping, the hinges on the screened door squeaking as they come to a laborious close.

A wine that evokes such nostalgia called for a film to match it. The clear choice was Gone with the Wind. My husband, Richard, is doing a series of Civil War era paintings (see the war of northern aggression, below) so it was the perfect timing. Now, in the Old South, there wasn't exactly an influx of Argentine wine...but with time, many things can change, and they always do. The Union won, several wars followed, Lolita was written, the British Invasion infiltrated American music....and of the list goes on. Eventually, wines from many countries around the world would be imported to the United States.
But in this moment, drinking the Torrontes, I was thinking only of how Scarlett would have enjoyed this Argentine wine, and that had she been born in another time, and had she moved North (heavens!) and felt a certain nostalgia for her birthplace, she would have fallen in love with this wine; a vine whose roots would seam to lead all the way back to Tara, where the muscadines canopy the edges of the plantation.

The Torrontes was made by Bodega Privada, and retails for about ten dollars. Drink it young, drink it now, because after all, tomorrow is another day, and you never know what it's going to bring.