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Argentina - Mendoza
We spent a few days kicking round Mendoza, a beautiful town in the heart of wine country. Recovering from a simultaneous bout of food poisoning, the first couple of days were taken very easy, strolling under the shade of the tree lined streets, avoiding the deep drains which irrigate them and whose water flows down from the melted snow-caps of the Andes. The town was preparing for the annual wine festival at the end of February at the main squares at night were bustling with tourists, their stands offering delicious samples of local produce: olive oil, wine, vinegar, cheese, fruit and of course, red meat. Parillas (crucifixed meat cooked leaning towards a wood fire) were everywhere.
Another early night recovering, and the next day we made appointments to visit three of the hundreds of local bodegas. We started with the best, Catena Zapata, which arguably produces Argentina's finest Malbec red. We got there late and the small group of well-dressed tourists was already half way through their tour, so a very kind lady called Betina from the hospitality department took us for a private tour of their beautiful bodega. From the roof terrace on top we could see vineyards stretching out as far as the eye could see. Despite still feeling under the weather, we had no problem downing samples of some very delicious whites and bought a bottle of their best non-export red. It would improve over the next 20 years and we planned to ship it back to London with the car. How deluded!
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Not wanting to arrive late for our second appointment, we sped off to ... a more mainstream operation, well-geared to accommodate the herds of tourists that came for the hourly tours. It was interesting to see how the grapes were crushed and fermented in the huge steel containers. The entire harvest is used, even the stems and seeds for fertilizer or grappa (explains the taste of grappa).
Back in the motor, and off to lunch. We found a lovely rustic restaurant out in the countryside just before our third and last winery of the day (La Rural). They told us they had a private party that day and so were unable to accommodate us but we insisted we'd eat whatever and they could put us in the garden. Which they did, under the shade of the fig tree. Leftovers were a delicious parilla and we tucked into our now staple diet of steak, morcilla (like black pudding), chorizo (spicy sausage), and salad and bread. The private party in the dining room had been lunching for a good while and by the look of the continued flurry of empty wine bottles we could see the waiter carrying back into the kitchen, they were doing a fair bit of wine tasting themselves. The only access to the ladies was through this room, and E-J braved it. As she entered, MG heard the room go quiet as 30 men instantly lost interest in their raucous conversation. E-J reappeared slightly blushing and with a big grin, and someone turned the volume back up even louder than it had been before. A few moments later one of the group came out to us and offered E-J a tactful apology without appearing to admit guilt. It transpired these were a group of local government officials were having an off-site lunch (weekly, we imagined). He was the president of Mendoza's casino and insisted that we go there for dinner that night on him and that if we had any problems with absolutely anything during our stay in Argentina we absolutely must call him or email him. Touched by yet another Argentinean going out of their way for us, we settled the bill and drove down the road to La Rural, nationally famous for its cabernet sauvignon, and locally famous for its wine museum. We were shown how wine was produced through the ages and went back to our hostel thoroughly outwined.
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That night, we wanted to go to sleep, but felt it necessary to accept the dinner invitation. On arrival the security guard told us E-J flip flops were not allowed and MG relished the opportunity to explain we were invited to dinner by the president. A senior member of staff was called over and he apologised and took us up the restaurant. We had not been expecting to arrive in the Bellagio but this was a pretty small town casino. We ordered some food and barely touched it - exhausted, ill and eager to get home to bed. They put it in a doggy bad for us (classy), and we went down for a flutter of black jack. Not feeling remotely lucky and almost resigned to losing before we sat down, the cards sucked and we cut our losses early.
The next day we packed up and set off for the Chilean border and Santiago. The border took forever to cross, but eventually we got Santiago and spent a couple of nights before heading south to Pucon.
