I spent this past weekend in Mendoza, Argentina’s most famous wine region. They are celebrating the vendimia, or annual wine harvest, and I was there for the show. And the drinking. And the eating.
My friends Susan and Michael were down from Ecuador for a vacation, so it was an added treat to spend this time with them. A bonus was that Susan had used her travel agent skills to hire an excellent driver and guide, Jorge, and my trip began with him picking me up at the airport and taking me to the hotel, where Susan and Michael awaited me. It was late morning on Friday.
First Tasting
About half an hour after I checked in, we were off with Jorge on our first wine tasting adventure, at a winery called Ruca Malen maybe 45 minutes outside Mendoza. We had a tour of the vines and the kitchen garden and the production area. Then we sat down at a table on a lovely veranda, surrounded by an array of wine glasses awaiting our attention.
Lunch was five courses, with a different wine pairing for each. To say it was delicious is an understatement, especially the beef course accompanied by everybody’s favourite, Malbec. We were so full we all declined dessert — and if you know me well, you know that is practically unheard of!
We came back to the hotel and had an afternoon nap, and then set off to explore a little. Jorge told us that there is a law in Mendoza that every ten blocks there has to be a “plaza” or green space full of trees and grass. This makes for a beautiful natural air freshening system.
After that we had the nerve to go out for supper!
The Parade of the Queens
One of the features of the vendimia is the crowning of the National Queen of the Vendima — yes, it’s an old fashioned beauty contest, but lots of fun nonetheless. Each region of Mendoza province sends its queen to the contest, and on Saturday afternoon there is a parade where they all get to show off. But it’s not just the queens. There are beautiful horses ridden by gauchos in full costume, and huge floats full of people throwing grapes to the crowd.
We couldn’t get over the number of young boys and girls of about five years old who were sitting astride these huge horses as casually as another kid might ride a bike — and controlling them perfectly while they waited during the long breaks in movement. Amazing. Susan took some great pictures of them, and when she sends them to me at the end of the week (when she gets back to Ecuador) I will do another post to show you them.
The Main Event
The main show takes place on the Saturday night at an open air amphitheatre just outside of town. We were picked up at 6 pm in a minibus with a dozen or so other people and a very competent guide called Florencia. We knew we were to be provided with a “box lunch” — but we didn’t realize it would be two enormous sandwiches, salad, dessert, candy, a bottle of wine and a bottle of champagne!
We arrived very early, and although that meant a long wait it was fun watching everything come together. The stage set itself was an engineering feat, and the lighting amazing. The program listed all the dancers, singers, aerial artists, band etc. by name, and I just counted them — 889! My little iPhone did its best, and I hope these shots will at least give you some feel for the grandeur and scale of it all. I also took a few short videos, and when I finally get around to sorting my videos out I will post a link to them here on the blog.
There was a fantastic show of dancing and music that lasted about 90 minutes, followed by the election of the queen, which lasted about an hour. They were all beautiful — as you would expect from Argentina, land of an amazing number of beautiful people — and the eventual winner deserved her crown.
The night ended with a fireworks display, and then we were ferried back to the hotel. We arrived about 2.45 am, tired and happy.
Second Tasting
Despite our late night, we were all up and ready for Jorge on Sunday morning at 8.30. We were headed further afield this time, for a two-hour drive to Tupungato and the glorious wine country of the Uco Valley. This is a veritable paradise of fertile wine growing land at the foot of the Andes, and so beautiful it takes the breath away. This is the Tupungato Volcano.
On our way there, we admired the huge state of Christ up in the hills above the valley, so Jorge decided to drive us up there to see it properly! It was a bit of a nail biter, but the view was worth the ride. The statue is interesting, with its very definite South American features.
We finally arrived at the Salentein winery, which is a relatively new one at only sixteen years old. This one has a lot for tourists as well as very fine wine. Way down below the vats and barrels is a wonderful cellar with a grand piano, where they hold concerts twice a year. You sit on the steps and lean against the barrels as you listen — I can’t imagine a better way to listen to music. There is one in September that features tango, which must be fantastic in that setting.
There wasn’t much time for sketching but I managed to snatch literally ten minutes to try for an impression of the place.
We had no food here, but tasted three different wines with a very good lesson on how to taste wine. I quite enjoyed learning about that.
Here we are with the wonderful Jorge.
Third Tasting (!)
That was just the morning, and we weren’t finished yet. Jorge had booked us for lunch and yet another tasting at Gaia, the winery of the Bousquet Estate. I had seen Bousquet wines in Canada but hadn’t tried them — I’ll definitely get them now!
Here we had a choice of a 4-course or 6-course lunch, with a wine pairing for each. We opted for four courses, as we were defeated by just the thought of six courses. Again, the food was fantastic, and the wines we had with each one were all delicious. We did manage to distinguish among them and we each had our favourite, but in truth they were all good.
This is Susan and me at the end of that lunch, absolutely satiated with great food and wine.
On the way back to Mendoza, Jorge told us about a little local ice cream shop in Tupungato, and he made it sound so amazing we just had to stop and try some. Yes, it was well worth it!
They took me straight to the airport, and I arrived home at my little apartment in Buenos Aires about 10 pm — and went straight to bed! All that food and drink compressed into such a short period of time was very decadent — but a wonderful weekend I’ll always remember.