Mendoza: We Cannot Stay Away

When we found out that some of our closest friends, the Newhooks, were moving back to the US, we knew that we needed to take one last trip with them before their move date.  The choice was simple, we needed to return to Mendoza.

Since this is our third time to wine country in Argentina, it was easy to decide what kinds of wineries to  visit.  We knew that we wanted to go to the smaller bodegas, and that one day we wanted to venture to the Uca Valley, an area that we had not yet visited.  Considering the sheer amount of wineries in Mendoza, somewhere around 1,100, we still looked to a tour company to help us narrow down the options. 

Our buddy Javier was on vacation for this trip, so we booked through Uncorking Argentina, and they put together a tour that was precisely what we wanted.  We visited 3 wineries each day, all of which are sized between boutique and low production (less than 1 million bottles produced per year). 

We started the trip at Mendel, a winery that we visited back in July and loved.  They have a lower line blend called Lunta that is a great value for your peso and their 100% Malbec is a great Malbec option.  The Malbec vines at this winery are almost 100 years old, and are some of the only vines that haven't been grafted with other varietals to resist a certain bug that ravaged the Malbec plants back in the 1940s.  The property was preserved because it was abandoned by the original owners - and recovered by the current owners after 25 years of disrepair.  The highlight of their wines is a Malbec/Cabernet blend called the Unus. If you see this on a wine list, it is an easy choice.

 They have this great sculpture on the property of a man harvesting grapes, constructed solely of machine parts.  He's a really cool representation of the vineyard.

We had a full tasting this time around, with a recently married couple from the US on my right and an Argentine couple living in Australia on Milena's left.  It turns out that the Argentines have mutual friends with the Newhooks - a very small world indeed.  And the groom was all grins as he posed for this picture.

Our next visit was to a relatively new winery to the area, Piattelli, which is actually owned by an American.  It is an organic vineyard and has one of the only female wine makers in the area.  This was our lunch spot on day one, and the food was very good, though the service was a bit disjointed.  After the winery tour, there was no explanation of the individual wines that we had with lunch, so I don't have much to share on that front.  I really liked their Chardonnay and they served a Rosé of Malbec that was too sweet for my taste.

The lunch was epic, I think we were sitting for over 2 hours. For a portion of the time, they had the sprinklers on right next to us, spraying Milena, which was just strange.  It was as if we had arrived too early for our reservation, though they knew well in advance when we were coming.  Interestingly, they are planning to open a winery in Salta, very close to where we all vacationed in December 2011.

We ended the day with a blending session at Renacer, which might have been the only winery that I would skip next time.  We were given four different pure wine types, Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, and 2 others, and we blended our own varietal. None of them were particularly great, but Jon's blend was given the honor of "Grand Reserva".

The following day is when we ventured to the Uca Valley, an area 1.5 hours south of the town of Mendoza. We started the day at Pulenta Estates, which is the maker of some of our favorite wines. The Pulenta Estates bodega is owned by two brothers, who are also related (I think there is a third brother in there) to the owners of Vistalba winery.  It's a funny thing, because the two wineries are both beautiful, and the tours were knowledgable and thorough.  The difference is at Pulenta, you can choose between 3 different tasting levels, each with a difference in price, but all of them consist of the higher quality wines that they produce. At Vistalba, they only offered their lowest level wines, which weren't all that great, and they hope that you will go out on a limb and purchase their higher lines (which aren't cheap at an average of US$50 per bottle).  It seems like a poor marketing move to me - we'll stick with Pulenta.

The next stop was Andeluna, ironically, one of the first wines we tried in Argentina.  They have gone through some changes, they renamed the different lines and changed their labels, but it is still a great, affordable option among Argentinean wines.  We had lunch at Andeluna, which offered a great 5 course pairing lunch.  The tables are set right next to the open kitchen, it was really great to see exactly what the chefs were doing.  They served a gazpacho soup with cucumber that was outstanding.

The last winery on our trip ended up being our favorite new find. La Azul is a boutique bodega that has a whole lotta land.  They sell over 80% of their grapes to other wineries, then they keep the chosen 20% to make their own wines.  They have a Malbec, Cabernet, Azul Reserva and Azul Grand Reserva (both blends).  The prices are on par with Domaine St. Diego, AR$40 for the lower lines and up to AR$120 for the higher lines, and the quality is incredible. Even if you live in Argentina, you won't find this wine very often... yet.  If you do, give it a go, you'll be glad that you did.

During the tour, we tasted the Grand Reserva right out of the barrel, generally a neat thing to do but at this stage, wines are not necessarily ready to drink.  This was smooth and bottle worthy, and it still had some months to mature.  

We had our tasting outside, which was a great place to sit for a drink in the afternoon.  The Uca Valley is much higher in altitude than Mendoza city, so the sun is extremely strong, but they tend to have a nice breeze.

For dinner on our last night in Mendoza, we followed our friend Chef Mun to his new location in the Casarena bodega.  He and Carey have such a great thing going for themselves, the location is beautiful, the dinner is held right in the barrel cellar of the winery, and the food is Asian-Argentine Fusion, not a mix you see every day here.

We had a great time, the dinner was outstanding, as expected, the only sad part is that is no longer have Casa Mun as an option the Capital!  If you are in the Mendoza area, make an effort to get to Mun@Casarena, it is unlike any other meal you will have in Argentina.

It was a great "farewell" trip with our friends.  While we were gone, Gretchen and Talia got together and played - they were having just as much fun at home.  And, even though we were only gone for a weekend, the best part is walking in and seeing this face again!

Mendoza the Return Visit: Day 2

On our second day in Mendoza started off at our favorite bodega from our trip two years ago, Domaine St. Diego (mlauritamza@hotmail.com (0261)155395148, Laura speaks English and Spanish). On this trip we reconnected with the same tour guide, Angel Mendoza's daughter, Laura, who was just as pleasant as the last time we saw her.  It was a beautiful and serene place to be first thing in the morning. I love the number of olive trees they have on the property, even though it reduces the number of vines they can plant.  This bodega is family owned and operated, and they go to great lengths to use the small amount of land that they have in a number of very interesting ways.

As mentioned before, the olive trees are interspersed between the vines, or more accurately, the vines were planted among the trees.  The grapes that grow directly below the trees don't get enough sunlight to grow to use for the wines they were originally intended for, so they use these grapes to make other wines.  When we visited before, they made a dessert wine called Oportuno that was delicious.  They have discontinued that wine and started making an outstanding sparkling rosé called Elea, after their first granddaughter.

They also grow certain vines at two different heights, to allow double the grapes to be planted in the same amount of space.  They manipulate the vines so that some grow taller than others and then maintain them at different heights.  The root structures for these types of plants are relatively deep, also making them a good match for the shallow-rooted olive trees.  Very cool.

The last piece of horticultural knowledge that I will share from this visit is the way that the winery creates new vines.  So, the plants that they currently use to make wine are somewhere in the range of 70 - 80 years old.  I don't remember the exact numbers, but somewhere around this range, the plants start to get tired and produce less quality fruit.  If they continue to naturally let the plant go, it will eventually die - literally from old age.  Instead, they naturally clone a new plant.  At the end of the season, when they prune all of the plants, the older, more tired vines are left with an off-shoot.

Grape vine "cloning"

This longer branch continues to grow, and then is guided down into the ground.  The plant will naturally grow down, then turn up toward the surface again and re-emerge as a new, sapling vine.  This vine (which is still attached to the mother plant by an "umbilical" cord) eventually grows it's own root structure and is able to live on it's own as an independent plant.  The branch is then cut, the new plant relocated - but not before the new plant feeds nutrients and energy back into the mother plant, rejuvenating it's fruit production for another period of years.  This will allow the plants to produce fruit from 30-40 years longer than usual, and has the added benefit of keeping the same DNA in all of the grapes.  Amazing!

 Domaine St. Diego has a beautiful look-out point that is great for photos, and is the weekend meeting point for the entire wine-making family.  What a great tradition to have, drink the wine you all helped to make while sitting atop a hill on your family's beautiful land.



The last stopping point on our tour was the olive centrifuge, which is the new technology for the olive press.  More simply, we stopped to watch them make olive oil.  They use this machine to create their own olive oil, which is outstanding on it's own or in the grapefruit and rosemary infused variety, and to generate profit by pressing other farm's harvest of olives.

After this we enjoyed the tasting of Pura Sangre, Paradigma and the sparkling Elea.  We also tasted, and proceeded to purchase, their olive oil, both versions, and got the contact information to purchase wine for delivery in Buenos Aires.  This is the last point to make about this winery, they only sell from the winery - no distributers or wholesalers, so if you want it, you buy from them.  Not a bad deal considering that all of their wines are a mere AR$60.

The next bodega on our tour was Carinae, a winery started by a French couple that used the stars as their theme.  Carinae is the name of the constellation that appears directly above the vineyard during harvest time - making it an appropriate name for the star-loving wine-enthusiast.  The Carinae wines are made from vines planted in Maipu, the place that we visited, but also in Salta (to make Torrontés) and Lujan de Cuyo (an area a few hours outside of Mendoza city).  Their most prized wine is called Prestige, which is aged for 18 months in new French oak barrels, and is a blend of Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.

Jon admiring the aging process

Their wines were good, though my personal favoriet was a Malbec Rosé.  I particularly like the foils surrounding the corks of these wines, they are classy, colorful and contain their namesake constellation.  

We spent another amazing, large lunch at Ruca Malen, another purposeful repeat from our last trip.  It was delicious, and pared with great wines - most notably the Yauquen Bonarda, a varietal that I have never heard of before this trip.  Keep your eyes open for Bonarda, it is very good, and rumored to be the next big thing after Argentine Malbec.

We ended our day at the Alta Vista winery, a beautiful building and grounds that is a photographer's dream.  Unfortunately for me, this was the fourth winery of the day, so my photos were not as impressive as they probably could have been (at least that's my excuse).  You be the judge. 

And here is the only photo I took of our guide, Javier.  The best wine guide in Mendoza!

To finish off the day, we returned to the hotel for some cards and relaxing before dinner.  This night, we made reservations at Azafran, the same restaurant we visited back in 2010 and still an outstanding choice for dinner. We were sad to learn that Philip, the gentleman that gave us the stargazing tour back in 2010 is no longer offering these tours.  And I was confounded to learn that he was actually one of two star-loving, wine-making Philips in the small town of Mendoza (the other being one of the owners of Carinae, who I was CERTAIN was the same Philip as before... who knew??).

Argentina is great about allowing carry-on wine on the plane, so we were able to purchase a few bottles to bring home with us.  I am obviously quite pleased with our purchases - and it was a great, fun weekend.

No doubt, we were anxious to get back to this little princess, who is now saying "night-night", "bye-bye", "bath-bath" and some singular words like "stop", "hi", "meh" (for milk) and most heart-warmingly "ma-ma" and "da-da" to refer to Jon and I.  She's so cute it's painful!

Mendoza, Keeps You Coming Back!

Last weekend we took our first repeat trip in Argentina, and which location was great enough to return to?
Mendoza. It's calm. It's relaxed. It's a great location to enjoy for an adult weekend of eating well, having fun with friends and visiting bodegas.

We returned to Mendoza a little over two years since our first trip, this time we arrived with our friends Chris and Mary.  Our friend and tour guide, Javier Inzaurraga (info@plazaitalia.net) arranged all of our bodega tours and graciously drove us around for two days.  Last time, we stayed at the B&B Plaza Italia, which is how we met Javier, but this time we opted for a more standard hotel accommodation, which worked out great for a quiet weekend away from the kids.

Thats right.  The kids stayed at home.  I have to say though, I think Gretchen thoroughly enjoyed her weekend with our beloved nanny, Candy.

Back to Mendoza.
We asked Javier to choose some of his favorite boutique wineries, along with a few requests from our last visit to Mendoza.  The first place we visited was Vistalba, a beautiful bodega with plenty of unique touches.  Vistalba wines are, perhaps, not as well known as the winemaker's brother's wines, which are produced under the name "Pulenta".  We are particular fans of Pulenta wines, they are affordable and of great quality.  The Vistalba wines have three lines, which they refer to as A, B and C if they are produced from the grapes from the Vistalba vineyards, or Tomero Gran Reserva, Tomero Reserva or Tomero if they are produced from the grapes grown in Uca Valley, an area of Mendoza provence approximately 2 hours from the city.

A few months before our visit, someone in the Altavista family had a wedding inside the bodega. As part of the wedding decorations, they covered all of the hanging lights with a wreath of dried grape clusters, making one of the coolest chandeliers I have ever seen. The light given off by these decorations was dimmed and shadowed which made for a very cool effect in the wine cellar.

In the tasting room there was also an exposed wall of earth to demonstrate where the vines are planted and how the soil remains so cool. This was a great place for a photo shoot.
The winery was impressive, though we were not floored by the wines provided during the tasting. It was disappointing that the tasting was exclusively from the "C" level wines.

Very picturesque indeed

Our second stop on day one was Mendel, another winery where we had no previous experience with the facility or the wines. This bodega had an interesting back story, the original vineyard was owned by a Spanish family that came to Argentina in the early 1900s and planted the vines.  Somewhere along the way, the winery was abandoned and left empty for over 20 years, until the current owners purchased the land and made it functional again.

The current owners have kept the original vines and building, which makes for a great looking bodega.  I love the old-world feel, and the fact that the vines are almost 100 years old.  It was a fun winery to tour, and Mariela, our host, was incredibly nice and knowledgable.

After the tour, our tasting started with a "vertical" tasting.  This is an interesting way to taste wines because instead of comparing varietals, it compares one wine through two or more vintages. For us, this was the Mendel Malbec 2010 compared to the 2011. The unanimous opinion was that the 2010 was the superior wine.

Our next stop was lunch, which involved a 5-course pairing at Melipal (the word Melipal is a South American Indian term for the star constellation the Southern Cross, which is a constellation I am quite fond of).  The lunch was quite good, and we enjoyed the wines, especially the Malbec Rosé.  We were told that the chef is the same at Ruca Malen (which we visited the next day for lunch) though we still felt that the lunch there was a bit better.

Our last stop of the day was Achaval Ferrer, a repeat from our trip in 2010.  This winery is beautiful and the day was warm enough to enjoy the tasting outside.  We still really liked the wines, though the prices still seemed a bit steep compared to the rest of the bodegas we visited.  That being said, we purchased their Dolce, a dessert wine that is sweet, but not overly so, and reasonably priced.

This was a nice way to end day one.  We returned to the hotel and the girls headed to the spa while the boys lost some dinero in the casino.

For dinner, we took Javier's recommendation and ate at Florentino (Montevideo 675, Mendoza City) which was casual, fun and delicious.  I specifically enjoyed the mushroom appetizer, though everything we had was delicious.  We also were able to order one of the Mendel wines that was left off of our tasting, one called the Lunta, which was probably our favorite of everything the offered.  It, ironically, was also the cheapest.

So, Mendoza didn't disappoint.  We had a full first day, and though there was plenty of indulgence, we had a great night's sleep and were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the following day.

Cheers!

Mendoza...Wine Not? Day 3

Our last day of bodega touring was with Javier Inzaurraga, Plaza Italia B&B owner Mercedes's son, who had chosen some of his favorites for the day.   This was a nice change of pace, we had the benefit of a local's take on the best wineries to visit, a perfect contrast to some of the larger wineries that we had visited on our first day in Mendoza.  In retrospect, I recommend both.  If you have enough time, it's great to see how the big leaders operate, and be able to spend time with some of the smaller vineyard owners.  Javier also took us to Lujan de Cuyo, so I'm pretty sure that all of the bodegas we visited were located in the Cuyo region.  Next time we visit (and I'm sincerely hoping that there will be a next time) we will have to get out to Uca Valley, where some of the more premium winemakers have settled in.  We stayed away from there this go around because it's a 90 minute drive from our hotel, and we had our fill of driving on our Andes Mountains day.

Bodegas:

Domaine St. Diego -
So boutique that they don't even have a website, so I give you this from Vino al Dia.  This winery is a family run operation started by Angel Mendoza (most appropriate last name ever).  Mr. Mendoza previously was the head wine maker at a large winery for over 25 years before he became a consultant to others in the business.  At some point along the line, he purchased a large parcel of land, previously an olive tree grove, and began planting vines of his own.
His family now owns a beautiful bodega that produces wonderful wine and olive oil under the Domaine St. Diego name.  This was our first stop of the day on Saturday where our guide was Angel Mendoza's daughter (who also designs all of their wine labels) and they made us feel like old friends.  We toured the vineyard first and she described how they have left the olive trees in the vine fields, even though it ran the risk of ruining the grapes.  What they have done instead is use the Malbec grapes from the vines grown closest to the trees to mix with Chardonnay grapes to create a unique sparkling wine variety.  This also means that they produce their own olive oil, which we were happy to taste with the bread and other munchie items provided.  One part of the family's philosophy is that they want to make their wines available to the local folks who visit their vineyard, so they don't export any of their wines.  All of their wine sales are done directly out of the vineyard, and we were happy to partake.  This turned out to be the only place we purchased wine on the trip, simply because we were not able to get it outside of Mendoza.  During our tasting we were even graced by a visit from Angel himself.  This was a great tour, probably my personal favorite.



Archaval Ferrer - The view from this winery could not be beat.  It was a beautiful vineyard with a beautiful brick building and one of the newest wineries on the block.  This bodega is owned by three business partners, two with the last names Archaval and Ferrer and a third who's family seal is in between the names on their label.
Our tour guide for this bodega was the son of Phillipe Schell, our French stargazing friend from Andes First so we had a very real feel for how small this town really was.  This was the first bodega we visited that used concrete in the making of their wines, as opposed to the wood and steel that others had used.  Archaval Ferrer has a huge export market and we saw several pallets that were packed and ready for shipment to the US.  Apparently they ship directly to a distributor in California, who then disburses the bottles around the country, so if you don't see this brand near you, it's because California is hogging it all.  If you're into the heavy Cabernets and Syrahs, this is just the wine for you. Their wines were full bodied, intense and, unfortunately for us, expensive by the Argentine standards we've become accustomed to. 

Ruca Malen - This was our lunch stop of the day and the only vineyard that we didn't actually tour.  Javier had us all (except Jon, so he says) convinced that we were just stopping for a Coke and a sandwich, so imagine our surprise when we walked in to a five-course meal complete with wine pairing for each course.

Jon jumps for Ruca Malen

The food was to die for, and the wines were just as good and perfectly paired.  For this lunch the winery was one step ahead and gave us a printed sheet with each food item, wine and a description of each so we were able to follow along.  The room we dined in inside this bodega only had 9 or 10 tables so each table was able to enjoy the amazing view from their one enormous window.  The window overlooks the vines set to the backdrop of the mountains, and we had a clear, sunny day to get the full effect.

Norton - Our last stop was Bodega Norton, one of the oldest winemakers in the area, and also one of the largest.  This winery has changed hands a number of times now resting in the hands of the Swarovski family.  That's the one, with the crystals.  This tour was unique because we only tried one of their wines, the Malbec, but we tried it at 3 different stages of the winemaking process.  Thus, we didn't really get a feel for Norton's wines, but we didn't really need to because we had all had them before.  The tour here was interesting because you start in the most modern area of the bodega, where there is state of the art machinery, and end up in the most ancient part, the dark and gloomy wine cellar.  Here is also where they house thousands of bottles of wine, some still leftover from 1970s vintages.  Our guide said that we needed to be really special to have a chance to taste the older vintages, and I'm guessing that we didn't have what it takes since we tasted the 2008 variety.

It was sad to say goodbye to our winery tours, they were all so fun and interesting.  I feel like some sort of scholar now since I recognize names on every wine list I see.  It is nice to have an idea of what you're doing when it comes to purchasing wine, especially when tasked with choosing a bottle for a table of friends.

Our table at Los Chocos

We rounded out our last night in Mendoza with a private dining experience not unlike Casa SaltShaker but this venue was called Los Chocos.  Los Chocos opens their home to private dinners every day of the week and offers a 5-course tasting menu with paired wines.  This operation is slightly smaller than our previous private dining experience since there is only space for a maximum of 8 diners.  The four of us were paired with another couple that was traveling through Argentina from the US.  The food was outstanding and the chef's M.O. is interesting, everything you eat (and drink, obviously) is from Mendoza.  This comes down to the even bottled water served, since all major bottled water companies in Argentina are from Mendoza.  It was a great dinner, a great night.  The chef did an amazing job and we really enjoyed the company of the other couple.  Hopefully they felt the same :).  If you are in the Mendoza area, Los Chocos is a must-do.

So that sums up Mendoza.  If you're not booking your tickets as we speak, I have done the trip an injustice.  It was a fantastic, fast paced, fun weekend and I would love to go back before our time in Argentina is up.

**Are you a sucker for photos?  I am.  For more pics of this and other trips, check out my Shameless Photo Sharing on the right side of the page.  Enjoy!**