Miercoles, 3 de Septiembre, Vinos de Mendoza (II)

Yesterday then, at 8:45 I was waiting in the lobby of my hotel until I heard my name be called out. I am still not used to the fact that these guys can actually say my name properly!!! :)

And there I went to meet our two lady guides, Andrea and Agustina, this last one was an "enologa" (the guys that study wine) who was starting out with the agency. And into the minibus to get our only other two participants that were staying in the Park Hyatt, the posh hotel in the same Plaza as me (and like 100 USD more expensive per night). Two guys, which I first thought, ahh gay couple, but nope, ended up being father and son! I thought about commenting this to them at some point, I mean I guess the father might have been thrilled that I would think he was the same age as his son.... but then I thought they might take it the wrong way... They were half from america, half from Uruguay so all in all we ended up deciding that we may aswell do the tour in spanish... so much for that!

The tour consisted on the visit to 4 wineries. On the third one we were to have lunch. The area of Lujan was only 20 minutes away which we spent getting to know each other a little and learning about the main facts of the area and the Medoza's wine. Also the scenery of arid landscape and thousands of vines all over the place was quite pretty, a pitty, again that the Andes were all hidden behind the clouds as they seem to make quite a spectacular view!!

The first winery we hit was a smallist one from the Familia Cassone, and argentinian family. Andrea told us that most of the wineries in the region are in fact not owned by locals but by international capital.

We had a small tour of the fields surrounding the main building and had a look at the metal barrels (not sure this is the appropriate word in english) where the wine is stored for a few months, depending on the wine itself. Apparently these tanks have surrounding cooling systems that allow them to manage the temperature much better than in the old wood barrels, thus they are used mostly by wine makers, and certainly for big quantities of wine.

We also saw the small machine they had to cork and tag the bottles. Depending of the size of the winery they will have one of this, a bigger one or they would rent one when needed.

Here was Elias, our guy in the winery next to their line of products.

 Once we saw the fields we went into their charming tasting room to try a few of their wines. In Mendoza they are famous for their wines from Malbec grapes but they also use some other grapes as well. Here we tasted some Malbec, a very nice rose, and some Cabernet Sauvignon. In Argentina for a wine to be tagged as of one grape type they have to contain at least 80% of such a grape type. Otherwise they are called blends, and all the wineries have some of this as well. Funny how there is some much behind wine, but also the similarities with other drinks such as beer or whiskey.
I must say that I started spitting in this winery, as it was 9:30 in the morning, and I didnt have that much in the stomach. I was the only one. The kid (kid was 26 years old by the way) was drinking full glasses, the father was teaching him that you should just wet you mouth with it. I didn't last for long with the spitting...