Mendoza Day 1

Late last night we got on the bus from Santiago to Mendoza. Getting the baggage on was absolute chaos! You'd think for a company doing this so many times in a day everyday that it would be more organized. Once we finally left about 35 minutes late, I read a bit and settled in to the trip. Allan and I both managed to get some sleep, mostly because it's a lot easier to sleep on a stationary bus. We were stuck at immigration for over 5 hours. It was not fun to be stuck for so long, but like I said, we both managed a little bit of sleep because of it. We were supposed to arrive at 0545, but didn't pull into Mendoza until about 1215.

After a short 15 minute walk to our hostel, we got checked in and took quick showers before heading out to a laundress fo get Allan's Aconcagua clothes washed. We jumped into Subway for some quick lunch and then waited for the shuttle bus for our wine tour at 1400.

Our first winery on the tour was Bodega Familia Cecchin Vinos Naturales. This winery is one of a few that has organic status in Mendoza. They grow fruit trees to stop parakeets eating the grapes. The birds go for the fruit in the higher trees instead of bothering with the grapes lower down. They also buy and cultivate ladybug colonies to help with pest control. The guide explained about how they have a few vineyards that grow different grapes. The vineyard on site is for Malbec grapes. A huge hailstorm a couple days ago destroyed 70% of their crop which is devastating. We tried 4 different wines (sadly not the orange wine that I was hoping we would). We started with chardonnay, then a Cabernet Sauvignon without sulfites, a Malbec, and a sparkling Moscato. They were all lovely. I enjoyed the cab sauv the most. I also won a bottle of their blended wine in an Instagram draw! So that was exciting (and perked me up a bit after the annoying travel).

The next stop was Pasrai Olivicula Boutique. This is an olive oil factory. They no longer grow olive trees onsite, but still use traditional methods for making the oil. They use a stone mill to grind the olives all together. The paste is put into a machine and squeezed. This gets the water and oil out. The liquids travel through many different vats to extract oil. The oil rises to the top and moves to the next vat. This is repeated until only oil remains. The oil is cloudy at this stage and needs to be purified by passing through a cloth to remove any last particles. Flavor can be added at this stage by removing oil from herbs, for example, and that gets added to the olive oil. After the guide took us through the production process, we got to try all the different oils! They had about a dozen. Allan really loved this part and I think went up and down the line of bread and oils at least 3 times. My favorite oil was the orange and the garlic. Allan just loved all the snacks and oil with balsamic.

We then went to Casa Corbel Bodega Sillon. We were greeted by our guide as well as three dogs. One of them really loved playing with a soccer ball, just like Freya. This is a smaller winery that grows grapes and prepares them to be turned into wine, they don't really make wine themselves. This winery also has a 150 year old olive tree. Apparently they can give olives for 400 years! We drank wine as we moved through the winery drinking most of the wine in the former fermentation room. This winery was established in the late 1800s and they used to use giant barrels to ferment the wine. My favorite wine here was their Patera wine, named for the more traditional method of using feet to smash the grapes. It was delicious, and a easy drinking wine (danger). We also tried their dessert wine that reminded me of mead; it was very sweet. They also had some bread and olive tapenade to try from their olive trees.

Florio was our final stop on the tour. This was a larger winery that produces a lot of their own wines. It's also owned by an Italian. We had a brief look at the winery under the comfort of some olive trees before moving through their production room and giant concrete vats for fermenting. By now we had heard about the wine making process a couple of times, separating the stems from the grapes with a spiral machine, crushing the grapes, putting them into the fermentation tank and moving it around so that the pulp doesn't just sit on top. This winery let us try quite a few wines. We tried a rosé that was pretty good. It was followed by a sparkling brut, two malbecs, and a Moscato. They also had a bread snack so Allan was pretty happy.

We had a 45 minute drive, with drop offs, back to the hostel. We ventured to a street full of lively bars and restaurants to see it all lit up at night and had a cheapy hot dog before heading back to the hostel. We spent some time looking at Couchsurfing for our time in Ushuaia before heading to bed around midnight, later than planned naturally.

All in all, it was a rough start to the day, but it ended on a tired but good note.Read more