Mendoza

Everybody reading this probably already knows what I spent my time doing in Mendoza. I got a jump on the wine tasting my first full day by taking a full-day up-market winery tour in the Lujan de Cuyo wine region with a group of 5 other people I had arranged ahead of time. It was pretty pricey by Argentine standards, but was well worth it. The tour at the first winery was absolutely fabulous, as were the wines (if you can find them in stores in the US, check out the higher-end lines of Bodega Benagas). While definitely not at the same level, the other winery tastings and tours were nice as well, and the lunch we had at the restaurant of one of the wineries was absolutely superb. Of course, the entrée was a perfectly juicy and tender (despite being slightly overcooked) Argentinean steak.

I had planned on doing some more tasting that night, but my palate was still pretty burnt out. Instead I just recouped a bit in my hotel and then hit dinner at a place recommended by the sommelier that led our tour that day. It certainly didn’t disappoint. Both the sweetbreads with a nectarine and torrontes chutney and the grilled pork chop with a blueberry malbec sauce were killer.

In contrast to my high-class testing setup on Monday, on Tuesday I went wine tasting with the riff-raff. There’s a very popular wine tasting bicycle route that a lot of people do in Mendoza. It’s in a town near Mendoza called Maipú which has a bunch of wineries conveniently located along a 10 km stretch of road. You just catch a bus there, rent a bike and get a trail map from any one of a numerous set of bicycle shops, and shove off. Although there are exceptions, the wineries on this route are more of the down-market or mass-market type (or both). The first place I went was a place the sommelier from Monday recommended, and that was a definite winner. It dropped off from there, though. In addition, much of the bike wasn’t particularly scenic (while a lot of Mendoza is stunning with all the vineyards with snow-capped mountains in the background, the city of Maipú isn’t exactly Oakville), and the road wasn’t very good for biking. There was no side path or groomed shoulder to the road, so you either had to ride in the narrow street and trust the cars coming behind you to avoid you, or you had to bike on the ungroomed side of the road which was riddled with rocks the size of softballs. In addition, the road was really lousy and had huge fissures in it. My prostate was killing me after about 20 minutes. As such, I didn’t stick around too long. I tasted at a couple wineries, grabbed some grub at one place, and split. The grub was actually the highlight of the ride. I got it from this really flash winery that would fit right in at Napa which had phenomenally good sandwiches, although the wine there was pretty unimpressive.

Leaving early allowed time for me to hit the big wine bar in downtown Mendoza that evening. I ended up being pretty popular as I brought a rare bottle of wine that the guide of my fancy tour gave me as a gift. I brought it out as I didn’t want to pack it in my luggage on my next several flights, so I was planning on having it with dinner. Instead, we pulled the cork on it at the wine bar and we passed it around amongst the staff for tasting.

After that it was to what was supposedly the best parrilla in town for some traditional Argentinean asado. The grilled meats I got were OK, flavorful but a little too tough, and once again the side salad of tomatoes and onion came out undressed. C’mon man! Undressed salad! WTF! It wasn’t even seasoned! How in the name of Christ can you create a tomato salad without any salt? Unseasoned tomatoes are an abomination unto man, as far as I’m concerned (as is unseasoned anything, for that matter, but particularly tomatoes). This is apparently a situation I’m going to have to adapt to around these parts. Maybe I need to start walking around with my own stash of sea salt and a pepper grinder.

Leaving culinary issues aside, if you want to check out some gorgeous Mendoza scenery you can do so here.