I tend to travel home with lots of bottles. Rum, pisco, Cachaça, wine, etc. When I’m in Mendoza in particular, I tend to be stretching the limit of my legally allowed alcohol allowance. Also, considering if you are not buying from Duty Free and if you have a connecting flight in the United States, wine cannot be transported in your hand luggage. It has to be packed. Although I’ve never had a bottle brake in transit, I know it is coming.

While Chardonnay and to a lesser extent Torrentes and Sauvignon Blanc are almost always given the nod as South America’s favorite white wines, dry, refreshing Viognier is slowly carving out a name for itself. It pairs well with shellfish, seafood, sushi, and even curry and the wine is drunk best young.

Michael Evans, the co-founder of Vines of Mendoza – a wine entrepreneurship program in Argentina’s Uco Valley near Mendoza – isn’t just an entrepreneur. He’s also a photographer. I caught wind of some of his images from his vineyards in Mendoza that he shot recently during the Argentine winter and he was kind enough to allow me to post them here. It’s far from the vineyard seen you usually see.