Our first stop was Mendoza which sits at the foot of the Andes and is home to much of the wine industry. Argentina is the dry side of the Andes and it feels a lot like Albuquerque. It gets warm during the day with cold nights and the soil is excellent for growing grapes and olives. Our first tour was with a company in town that drove you to two wineries and an olive farm. The wine was so-so, the highlight being a 2005 Malbec from Baudron that won some awards. We´re hoping it survives the plane flight home. The olive farm was cool, as the trees make their best fruit at ages of 100 to 400 years. This particular farm was planted over 100 years ago...
We didn´t quite get our fill so the next activity was drinking and biking through the Ruta del Vino, or Wine Road. Depending on how many places you go its about 15 to 20 KM roundtrip. The road is kind of narrow but they are used to tipsie tourists and even on this winter day there were at least 30 other people weaving around town. As you can see the signs make perfect sense.
On the first day we visited 4 wineries, a wine museum, and a boutiqe chocolate shop. Great time, good drink, and some nice exercise. There are just a few problems with the tourism side of wineries in South America that we hope are fixed in the future:
1. Most wineries only pour 1 or 2 wines. Sniff...
2. They tend to pour the youngest wines and most are not remotely representative of the quality stuff.
3. If the winery is famous for something, either a particular vintage or style, they don´t pour that. Many don´t even have the good or reserve tastings for a fee. You just can´t try the good stuff.
4. A number of wineries require reservations. This is not as prevalent in Argentina, but was a big problem in Chile.
Still, we´ve loved wine country in Chile and Argentina and we know they will only get better at the tourism side as the number of visitors grows.
Biking only 20KM the first day was not enough so we went back for a 2nd day. Our favorite company, Mr. Hugo´s, suggested another round of places and we lucked out that a couple of them poured some great selections. The pic below is from Tempus Alba which recently opened a beautiful facility. They charged a bit for the tasting, but it was worth the price for the quality of wine and the great views. Also, their tour was self guided with a few signs explaining what was happening. After 10 tours or so, they all sound the same...
After 3 days in Mendoza we caught an overnight bus to Buenos Aires. BA is too huge and too amazing to summarize here. However, the current highlight was a Boca Junior soccer match. The fans are crazy, the stadium is historic, and the experience is like nothing in American sports. The stadium seats 40,000 but they sell 60,000 tickets. In the general admission sections they keep you locked in for 20 minutes til after the match to allow the opposing fans to leave. Nutssss...
