Malbec & Mendoza

We traveled to Mendoza, a lovely area in northwestern Argentina specificlly to enjoy the malbec wines from this area. After checking into Casa Peubleo which took a bit of time since we arrived early, we went to find the wine trail.

We took a bus to Maipu (which is pronounced my poo, giggles all day!) and hopped off at Mr. Hugos bike rental. Mr. and Mrs. Hugo great you as you depart the bus and usher you in to get you comfortable. For 25 pesos, we were able to rent a bike, get a bottle of water, and sort of listen to what direction they were telling us to go. The first part of the ride is through a scummy bit of town and was not at all like the romantic vision I had of peddling my way through the countryside and vineyards. Uggh. Thankfully, the view improved the further from town we got.

We biked out to the Familia di Tomaso winery for lunch and enjoyed our first malbec of the day. It was a small vineyard and winery, our sandwiches were nice. I had an avacado, ham, and cheese on really delicious bread. It was rustic looking and we sat on the veranda.

We continued further up the road to Carinae. This small vineyard is owned by a French couple and is distributed in St. Louis for my fam and friends back home. The Carinae is a constallation that is only visable during the harvest. This vineyard had not begun harvesting yet, some of the others are just getting started. Here, we did a tour and enjoyed some rose, a malbec, and a nicer malbec that had been aged longer. This was a pretty nice tour and we saw a gal hand labeling the bottles. From here, you are able to see the beatiful Andes in the distance that frame the city of Mendoza.

Next, we went to Vina El Cerno, which was the least exciting vineyard on the tour. The guy was too laidback and not really giving any information. The wine here was decent and the pours were extremely generous.

Feeling a bit tipsy, we missed the next winery listed on our map and skipped to Trapiche. Trapiche is a very old vineyard, it was founded in 1912 by an Italian immigrant. The vineyard and winery was purchased by an American company recently and they decided to completly restore the old buildings to the original look. Our tour guide explained that most of the buildings that are old have been destroyed by earthquakes and that it was a point of pride to have the buildings and vineyard restored. Here, we sampled a delicious cabernet, a malbec, a sparkling rose, and a torrontes. I have never had a torrontes before, it is a young, white wine and was yummy. The tasting room was built ontop of the barrel room and has a clear glass floor for you to gaze at while enjoying the wines. And the bathrooms were very cool, too.

As we peddled our way back to Mr. Hugos and were welcomed home like family. Because I hadn´t enjoyed enough wine yet, Mr. Hugo invited us to sit down and passed us another bottle of red wine. This one was unlabeled and probably very low quaility but at this point it doesnt really matter. We chatted with other drunks hobbeling back from the vineyard tours and enjoyed more wine that was included in our measely 25 pesos.

This morning, I awoke ready to take on more wine. Mike called uncle (he´s not that into wine anyway) and I departed on another tour. My legs are tired from yesterday, today I paid extra for the minibus shuttle with an English speaking guide. We started off at Weinert, another large and old vineyard similar to Trapiche. I didnt bring the camera along because I didnt have any pockets, but they had really old and large barrels for their wine making. We got to try some grape juice (to compare it to the fermanted wines), another torrentes, a malbec rose, and a malbec. Yummy.

Next, it was off to Carmine Grouata. This vineyard is a smaller producer and was founded by an Italian immigrant in 1910. His grandson is the current winemaker and their wines have won many awards. We tried a cabernet and a malbec here. Our tour guide offered for sale a bottle of wine for 280 pesos (about 85 usd) a select bottle of their 1999 vintage. Its only sold to private collectors abroad and retails for 200 euro.

My tour ended today with a tour of Laur olive oil factory. It was a bit boring and we only sampled their extra virgin olive oil. I have done other olive oil tastings where you sample a few and compare, but oh well. Another wonderful day in Mendoza!