Mendoza: Wine and Friends

A sign you have been traveling for a while: you take a 19 hour bus ride and it doesn't even phase you. The ride from Bariloche was comfortable and very tolerable. We are getting so spoiled by Argentina's transportation. It really is wonderful.

Upon arrival in the beautiful city of Mendoza, we promptly broke all sorts of travel safety rules. We were approached by a man who offered us affordable lodging and we decided to check it out. He said he was heading back to the hostel so he could drive us there in his truck. So, yes, we piled into a stranger's vehicle and headed to his "hostel". I should mention that there are signs all over the Mendoza information center emphasizing that you should NEVER accept street offers for lodging. Sometimes you just have to trust your gut. This stranger, Mario, gave us a good vibe.

Well, Mario, turned out to be quite the character. He is a para-gliding enthusiast and flies literally every day he can. He also likes to practice his English so he talked to Tim a lot. Tim recieved a seemingly ridiculous and hilarious lecture on the "dangers" of Peruvian travelers, who travel as bands of "thieves". I'm sorry I missed that conversation but Tim did a good job of reenacting the highlights for me, including the stabbing motion Mario made when he explained the Peruvians weren't violent. It sounded pretty entertaining. Mario does, in fact, run a hostel. However, he doesn't put a sign out front because he wants to control who stays at the place (probably to keep out those pesky Peruvian thieves). Instead, he goes to the bus station every morning and hand picks people to stay there. Each morning, we would wake up and meet the "new recruits" staying in the hostel. It turns out all sorts of people are ok with getting into a stranger's vehicle.

Situated at the foothills of the Andes, Mendoza is a beautiful city full of shady plazas and wonderful restaurants. However, the highlight of Mendoza for us was the fact that we got to hang out with these two people:

Rachel and Nick from London! I met Rachel while we were both studying abroad in Madrid and we have managed to stay in touch over the years. When she sent me a message that they would be in Argentina for a month, we happily made plans to meet up. On our first night out, we had a great meal on a sidewalk terrace. Just as Rachel and I were commenting that there was no breeze, the skies opened up and it poured rain, scattering the outdoor diners. It apparently doesn't rain very often in Mendoza. In fact, it is usual for months to go by with not even a drop of rain, so the city isn't equipped to handle large amounts of rain. As we watched the rain pour down, we decided to head to a bar across the street. There was only one small problem: the street was now flooded and we would have to remove our shoes to make it through the shin-deep waters. Below is a photo of us as we psyche ourselves up to cross the floodwaters. When we successfully reached the new bar, we rewarded ourselves with a bottle of wine. It was an exciting first evening out!

Here you can see Mendoza's water drainage system, which did nothing to keep the water out of the streets during the storm.

The following day, we met up with Rachel and Nick for a winery tour. Mendoza is in the heart of Argentina's wine country and, as Nick said, it would be rude to not appreciate what they have on offer. So, off we went in the tour van!

We headed to an area called Maipu, which was really pretty with some lovely tree-lined lanes.

First stop: an olive oil producer. Grapes and olives seem to grow well together.

We were given a brief, but informative tour of the business. We started with the trees...

and made our way to the extraction machines. Tim may have a new career!

After the tour, we were lead to their store, where we got to sample the goods. It was a nice stop.

However, our real reason for being on the tour was to taste the finished product of the fruit of these lovely vines!
We would be stopping at two wineries- a big one and a little one. This was so we could get an idea of the way things are done on two very different scales. We stopped at the big winery first, where we had a very enjoyable tour of the place.

It's in a lovely setting.

The tasting was pretty darn fun too! We all sat on these fancy leather couches while our guide talked us through the proper way to appreciate wine. It was yummy!

After making some purchases, we piled back into the van and headed to the small winery. It was very different and equally enjoyable.

Since they work on a much smaller scale, they specialize in small batches of artisanal wine. While the big winery produces tens of thousands of bottles of their wine, this place produces a fraction of that. I really wanted to snag a bottle of their award-winning 1999 Malbec. There's only 166 bottles of it left!

As luck would have it, we were there during harvesting season and they were unloading a truckload of grapes. Fun!
The second tasting was held around a rustic wooden table, which was a great contrast to the white leather couch experience. It was a much more familiar and warm setting to taste wine in.

We paid $11 for this tour, so you would think that after the olive oil and two wineries, we would have our money's worth. However, this tour had even more to offer! We stopped by a church that holds a statue of the "saint of the vines", who, for obvious reasons, is very important in this region.
Then, we headed to a liqueur business, where we enjoyed all sorts of flavored liqueurs- everything from dulce de leche, to absinthe. It was a silly stop that was most likely put in as a money maker for the shop but we didn't mind! They had chocolate too. After a hard day out in the vines, we headed back to Mendoza and made plans to meet up with Rachel and Nick later in the evening to taste some of our purchases.

It was one of the best evenings of our trip. We sat in the outdoor patio at their b&b and snacked and sipped as we chatted the night away. The wine was great and made more special by the fact that we had toured its source.

The next day, we basically sat around in one of Mendoza's plazas until...

we could meet up with Rachel and Nick for a wine tasting at a place called The Vines of Mendoza. Rachel and Nick each ordered a flight of wine while Tim and I had three glasses each. We all shared tastes with each other. Between the four of us, we tasted somewhere around 15 different wines in one evening!
Here's a closer look.
Since Mendoza's focus is food and wine, it really was the perfect place to meet up with our friends. Our enjoyment of these things was greatly enhanced by being able to share it with Rachel and Nick. We whole heartedly recommend them as wine tasting companions and would happily meet up with them anywhere!

Mendoza offers all sorts of other expeditions: whitewater rafting, hiking, para-gliding with Mario, etc. We chose to skip those things and just hang out during our days in the city. One interesting thing we came across was a motorcycle rally being held there. We saw plates from Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay and Brazil! Lots of Harley Davidsons - a Milwaukee company. Even when we are far from home, we are never far from a reminder of home.

Vroom! Vroom!
That pretty much sums up our Mendoza experience. A big thank you to Rachel and Nick for sharing your time with us. Yes, we stole some of your photos for this post!