Malbecs in Mendoza

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Trip Start Jan 17, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Jun 30, 2009 Next
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  Mendoza, Argentina
Tuesday, December 2, 2008

So it was finally time after 3 amazing weeks to say Au revoir to the great city of Buenos Aires, it was a bit tearful as Daniella and her mum said goodbye, knowing that it would be another 7-8 months before they would see each other again, but we had had a great time together in Buenos Aires during our stay here, so we were leaving on a high. Our bus left from the city's Retiro bus terminal, probably one of the largest bus stations I have ever been to, rows upon rows of bus company offices, dispatching buses to all over the countries. We found our way to the Flecha bus office, unfortunately there was a queue, but it did not take too long as we (maurice) went to another window and demanded that they serve us. Anyway without further ado, we were climbing aboad the evening flecha bus to Mendoza, the bus is classified as Ejecutivo class, which is much more confortable than semi-cama or even cama class. The seats recline so you can have a comfortable, you are provided with a newspaper to read and are given a fairly tasty hot meal, and as much wine (not a good vintage though!!) as you want. So we relaxed in our luxurious seats, and watched the in-bus movie. Overall, its a good way to travel, although it is not as confortable as sleeping in your own (non-moving bed).

So after arriving in Mendoza, we headed straight to our hostel ( La Cava -chosen for having the cheapest prices in town), we found our they had a double room available, so we went for that, it was nice to have some privacy after staying in dorms for a while, we hit the sack straight away and slept for a couple of hours, after waking we went for lunch with Amy, who had arrived the following day.

.....and drunk.

After lunch, we walked around the town's square and its nearby streets, nothing out the ordinary, just the usual Plaza San Martin, named after one of Argentina's founding heroes, we did witness a fight between two guys in the square in the middle of the afternoon, apart from that nothing out of the ordinary! We got some information from the friendly guys at the hostel regarding the bike ride about the vineyards that we were going to the following day.

Raring to go about 11am, with a packed lunch or omelette sandwiches we set off on the bus for the 30mins journey to Maipu, a small town in the nearby countryside where a lot of vineyards are located. Disembarking from the bus, we picked up our bikes from Mr Hugo's the bike rental shop, together with our complementary bottle of water and set off on ride.

First stop: only a few minutes away from the rental shop, we made our way to the chocolate factory/various alcohols factory. We chilled in their confortable garden for a while, even wondering if they had forgotten that we were here. The tour started and lasted for a very short 5 minutes, while the girl told us about all the different products that they mixed with alcohol. After the tour we were given some chocolate, and our choice of spirits (1 each) I chose the green pepper, unfortunately it was truely vile, but the chocolate was much better! So we hit the road, cycling through the midday heat, we made our way to the next vineyard, Di Tommaso, by the time we arrived here, we getting a little peckish so out came the omelette sandwiches.

A very happy Amy

We had to wait a little here as well, butr not long, then the informative tour of the vineyard and its wine making faciltities, it was a preseved example of how vineyards used to be, before modern factory methods took over. After the tour, we were treated to some (very small) wine tastings of some of their finest wines. So back on the bikes, we carried on to the furthest point of our excursion. We headed first to ther olive oil factory, where we given an informative tour of the olive fields and the factory, although the tour was in Spanish, we were able to understand what the tour guide was saying, well, it has to be said that making olive oil is a relatively complicated process, you need 7 kilos of olives in order to produce just 1 small bottle of olive oil, so no wonder it is a relatively expensive product. Luckily after the tour , we got to taste some of the golden liquid, poured onto crusty homemade bread, accompanied by sun-dried tomatoes, delicious! So then we went across the road to our last vineyard, cant remember its name, it was a boutique vineyard owned by a French couple. After our tour of the bodega, we tasted some wines, then after enjoying one of the Malbecs a lot, we bought a couple of bottles and sat at some outdoor tables happily quaffing the wine, enjoying them with some abricots picked from the trees in the garden. After a few leisurely hours, we cycled back to Mr Hugo's who provided us with more wine (this time for free - but not quite the same quality as the last vineyard - but greatly appreciated nevertheless!)
After a poor drunken meal at Mr Dogs (it sells hot dogs and burgers) greatly enhanced by our server who was the happiest person to ever work in a fast food restaurant, we headed back to the hostel, where all the guys who were working there (it seemed greatly over staffed for the number of guests) had invitd their friends out and having a sing along, whilst one of them played the guitar. After a couple of hours we hit te sack, the next day Steff and the girls were arriving from Buenos Aires, and low and behold, when we awoke the next morning, they were sleeping off their long overnight bus journey. Later on the afternoon, we all trooped up to the nearby supermarket where we picked up supplies for that nights dinner, we were eating spaghetti alla carbonara cooked by yours truely, the supermarket had only one packed of pancetta left, but beggars cant be choosers so....we had to make th best of it, before Daniella and I left we had a nice dinner together with everybody before leaving for the bus station. Just time for some last group photos before we caught the taxi and said our goodbyes to Steph and Amy, who we would not be seeing again on this trip. So we set back out on the road for good, once again just the two of us.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

after a shot of alocoholic chocolate	Amy and Jon	barrels of wine	Beautiful building
bike wine trail	corked barrels	enjoying the fruits of our labour	getting drunk.....
jammin and chillin	jammin away	Jammin session at the hostel after	mendoza town
more vintage bottles	tasting time	top of the range car	Vineyard
vintage bottles	wine directory

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