The Blaus - South America and Europe

3 de Marzo - Mendoza Bodegas

We have been taking the public bus out to some of the Bodegas, each day hitting two different places. We finally got a chance to head out to Navarro Correas, which is owned by Diageo, who also owns Sterling Vineyards and BV in California. Through Sterling before we left the States, we met one of the winemakers at BV, who was the winemaker at Navarro Correas here in Argentina 3 years ago. He gave us some contacts here, so we set up a tour with them in advance. The winery was amazing, newly remodeled by a famous architect from BsAs. The people were all so nice to us, and we ended up spending almost 4 hours there talking with them and picking their brains about growing Malbec grapes. They invited us to a private dinner at the winery the following evening, which was catered by a famous Patagonian chef who fuses food from Patagonia with food from Mendocino (that is what they call the Mendoza region). We accepted, and enjoyed 4 courses of amazing food, all the Grand Reserve Malbec, Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay and Champagne we could drink, and paid $15 a person. The winery was beautifully set up, and we had our own private table overlooking the wine cellar in a candelit room with about 30 other people. It was an amazing experience. We also got more time to talk with Marcos and Fernanda, the two people who run PR and guest services for the winery, who are incredibly nice and welcoming folks. They refilled our wine glasses before we could finish them, and since we have been on a tight budget, we weren´t going to turn down free, high quality wine. Needless to say, we left a little tipsy and fully stuffed.

We also went to several other wineries, most notably Catena Zapata (the pioneer of Argentine premium wines), Dolium (great young malbec and tempranillo), Chandon, and La Rural. Catena Zapata`s visitor center is an amazing structure. It is built like a mayan temple, in a pyramid shape with 1,000 acres of beautifully cultivated grapes surrounding it, and the snow tipped Andes in the background. We walked there from Dolium, which is 6 kilometers down some old dirt roads, and we did not have reservations. Anna, who works in hospitality there, let us come up even though they were closed for the week because of the harvest festival, and she showed us around. The place is so impressive, built with huge stones and redwood, all local materials. If you are looking for good wines, especially malbec, you should try the Catena Zapata, they export to the States, and have joint ventures with Lafite Rothschild and other big names in the wine making industry. After our private tour, they offered us a ride back to the main road, they thought it was funny we had walked there.

Mendoza is a very interesting wine growing region. It is basically a high desert. They get only 8 inches of rain per year. All the water for their grapes comes from runoff from the Andes. The way a lot of vineyards irrigate is by diverting the runoff into their fields once every two weeks to flood them. They also get a lot of sun during the day, and the nights are cool, which make for perfect conditions for good grape growing. For years they have focued on the Argentine wine market only, and produced low quality, cheap wines for the local masses. Now they are realizing there is a lot of money to be made in exports, and a lot of money is being spent to upgrade facilities, and produce higher quality wines. I am sure that we will all be much more familiar with Argentine malbec in a few years.

Since this is the week of the harvest festival, there is a ton to do at night. We have spent two evenings at the Italian Plaza (there are 5 plazas in the center of the city, each is named after a country), where there is a huge party with food and wine and beer, and live opera singing and tango dancing. You buy tickets, and the food and beer is purchased with those tickets, and each ticket has a number on it that is part of a raffle. We have had great Italian food and we have done a lot of people watching in the park. Tonight is the first parade of the reinas (queens). The reinas are selected from each province in Mendocino, and they each have fans and local pride backing them. The shops of Mendoza put up posters in their windows to announce which reina they support, and then the queen of the year is elected at the end of the week. We each have our favorite queens, and we will see who wins at the end of the festival. We have a bet on it.

As the city gears up for the big weekend, we have noticed many police cars driving around at night with their lights flashing. Apparently the Embassadors from each town in the province gets a private police escort. It is stange seeing police cars with flashing lights all over town, it makes us realize that they take security very seriously here. Another thing we have noticed in many towns in Argentina are the street performers. One way to make some extra coins is to go out in the middle of the street while lights are red and put on a show dressed like a clown. These guys are all over the place, juggling and trying to get the cars to give them some coins when they drive by. It makes for some interesting moments, especially when they drop their balls or bowling pins and they go under cars or out into the intersection where traffic is roaring by to retrieve them.

Overall Mendoza ia a really nice city that has the same feeling of Buenos Aires, it is large and modern, but also has the peace and beauty of the vineyards and wineries just outside of town. People here are very nice, and go out of their way to make you feel welcome (except for the lady who runs our hostel). They stick to tradition more here than in other places. All businesses are closed from 2-5 for siesta, even our hostel locked us out once during the day (which was annoying). The town also has a great central market that we discovered, so we have been buying cheese, fruits, vegetables, and bread to bring with us for lunch when we are visiting the bodegas...the fresh food from the market goes perfectly with the wine. Even better is the siesta at the end of a full day of wine tasting.

posted by The Blaus @ 8:29 PM