If you’ve already got your costume and decorated your house as spookily as possible, let us help you out with something you may not have considered yet: seven creepy Halloween wines to pair with your candy or accompany horror-film marathons with your friends.
Argentine winemakers are famously creative and they’re not without a darker side: here are seven Halloween wines associated with scary and mysterious stories to drink well into the night.
Halloween wines: a selection for the spookiest night of the year
1. Alma Negra
One of the first Argentine winemakers to adopt original, disruptive imagery for his wines, Ernesto Catena was also one of the most brilliant. His Alma Negra led the way for many, not just with the spooky imagery of a mask in the shadows but also because he maintained an aura of mystery by never revealing the components of his delicious blend. It thus comes at the top of our list of Halloween wines.
2. The Owl & The Dust Devil Blend
Owls are creatures of the night and at the Remolinos vineyard owned by Finca Decero, they’re joined by an unusual phenomenon: winds blowing down the mountain, raising mini-twisters of dust among the vines, much to the displeasure of the nocturnal birds.
Folk wisdom has it that owls have the ability to see things that humans can’t perceive and also know how to drive away evil spirits. Which must be why the Finca Decero vineyards are so well-protected from supernatural forces. If you’d like to learn more about the story, the label has a link you can use from your smartphone to embark upon an augmented reality experience.
3. Inframundo Natural
Every wine is defined by weird and wonderful hidden forces. For centuries that clandestine energy has been associated with the underworld. It was for this very reason that Durigutti Family Winemakers decided to call their new natural Halloween wines – a Nero D’Avola and Red Blend made with minimal intervention to enhance the existing energy of their place of origin – Inframundo (Underworld in Spanish), winning plenty of new converts to their cult.
4. Pie Grande – Fantasy Wines
One of the most important new trends among wineries and Argentine wine as a whole is a renewed respect for and belief in the need to preserve and protect the secrets of the Andes and the natural world. Pie Grande (Big Foot in Spanish) is a project that implements sustainable, organic practices to appease the natural world’s guardians. And so, their wines are named after them: Nayade, the Goddess of Water; Ents, Tree Herders; Lamassu, Holder of the Winds and Endriago, the Master of Fire.
5. Malabarista Wines
Malabarista Wines is an independent project born out of a working philosophy that makes as little use of natural resources as possible; only what is necessary.
For that very reason, the winery decided to adopt the image of a classical circus figure, the acrobat who defies gravity, just like the winemakers themselves, alongside other well-known figures such as magicians, fortune tellers and two-headed freaks: the perfect Halloween aesthetic.
6. ULB by Ginard Ballester
One often comes across wines associated with local rural legends, it’s a trope that never gets old. Less common is a wine inspired by an urban legend.
And yet, that’s exactly what Ginard Ballester came up with when launching his line of wines from Paraje Altamira. His labels are Golem, Taberna Calavera (Skull Tavern), La Aparecida (Apparition) and El Sueño de Chita (Chita’s Dream); four labels that ought to come with a warning about their potential to cause nightmares.
7. Amuleto Wines
At Halloween, we’re given carte blanche to celebrate the macabre, but the following day it might be wise to have some protection from any evil spirits you may have inadvertently awoken. What better than an amulet? We suggest breaking any lingering spells with a glass of Amuleto Wines (perhaps the Syrah is best; its mystical spirit seems more than appropriate).
