We got on the bus at the bus station and immediately realised we didn't have any change for the ticket machine on board. We should have really got off at the next stop, but in a touching display of Argentine generosity, a kindly old chap hopped up and used his own travel card to swipe us a couple of tickets and then wouldn't accept the two peso note I tried to give him.
As were nearing our destination, the bus driver beckoned us over and gave us a leaflet to an alternative bike hire place. He said the guy who ran it (known as Mr Hugo) was a mate and we should go to him for our bikes. He then proceeded to drop us right outside. Mr Hugo was hugely cheerful and rolled us out a couple of decent looking bikes while his wife took the cash. We spotted a beautiful tandem but were dismayed to find that someone had already booked it out. Ah well. The roads looked pretty decent and flat, and the bike's had enormous 'supportive' type lady saddles. This was definitely a bonus for Clair who rather explicitly described how she felt after our previous cycling experience as having been 'kicked in the fanny'. Mouth on that girl eh, I don't know.
Our first port of call was Bodega La Rural. It is the maker of the Philipe Rutini wines and for years was owned by the Rutini family although is now in the hands of an Argentine consortium.
We were greated by a super cheerful young lady tour guide who spoke English to us, and Spanish to the 25 or so other Argentines who were milling about at the time and did the tour with us. It was super informative and on site is the biggest wine museum in South America stuffed full of all kinds of winemaking paraphernalia from throughout the ages.
Lots of lovely old farm machinery decorated the site outside the museum.
I particularly like this tiny old fiat bulldozer.
We were shown inside and they had various equipment that was used when winemaking processes started in the 1600's. The grape bunches were chucked into this bull skin and then a couple of people climbed in and squashed them. The juice was collected out of the tail. Nice. It still hummed of wine and cheesy feet.
These hairy sacks were used to collect the bunches. The floor is made of wooden tiles, so as not to damage the barrels.
The wines were stored and fermented in these gurt mahoosive ceramic pots.
This was the first wine press used on site.
The next section was jam packed with cooperage tools and artifacts, as every barrel used to be handmade. A quite unbelievable amount of tools were required.
This is an old barrel with an original sticker from the winery.
Here is our nice tour guide lady. Unfortunately you could only try the cheaper wines (which were still quite nice). So we guzzled a couple of them down and headed off.
We spotted these nice old glass containers covered in basketry on the way out.
Our next stop was a place that made liquors and chocolates. Ideal for me really.
We were shown round by this cheerful girl who was running the place with her cousin. She kept getting the giggles and made it quite a hilarious experience. They made a huge range of liquors from whiskies and rums to chocolate, dulce de leche and fruit liqueurs. We got to try a good range of them and even the sickly sweet ones were pretty tasty. They also make their own absynth. Here I am just about to try it. It was actually really smooth compared to the other varieties I've tried.
The chocolates were also nice, but in a repeat of our previous chocolate tastings, it didn't really taste like high quality stuff. To me it was a bit closer to cooking chocolate (not that that has really put me off before as Carrie's endlessly dwindling larder supplies would attest to). What was really nice though, was their savoury jars of various sauces and pastes. We bought a lovely jar of hot tomato-ey stuff which was bloody gorgeous.
Outside Clairy was astounded by their beautiful grapefruit tree (which they call pomelo in Argentina - Not toronja, like the rest of Latin America for some reason).
Oooh yeah, grab that juicy fruit!
Our next vineyard was a good 4km away, so we peddled on and passed this rather sad looking shrine on the way.
Outside Bodega El Cerno was this quality sign put there to help stop the drunken English from getting lost no doubt.
Inside was a nice young chap who took us around the very old style 'family' winery (a tipple for the kids as well maybe) and here we paid to try some of the more quality wines. What we both found really helpful were these signs on the wall (both being complete novices when it comes to wine tasting).
And here's the lady whacking it away, I mean slowly and carefully tasting each one. We didn't actually try all the wines on the table. Again though, we both found our favourite was the older vine Malbec. So we bought our most expensive bottle to date..a whopping 7 quid! It turned out to be really gorgeous.
We then had another 4km or so to the next winery. This one was known as Bodega Di Tommaso. By this time it was about half three in the afternoon and we were both bloody starving. We opted for a mega cheese selection figuring it would go down nicely with a bottle of Malbec from this place. I don't think either of us have ever eaten quite such a massive volume of cheese in our lives...and it was all for us (not like in France eh parents!).
Obviously then one bottle led to another...
And the result was carnage...
You try taking a self portrait after 3 tastings and 2 full bottles.
Unfortunately we still had to cycle back...and were about 9km away by this point. The roads did look beautiful mind with their autumnal crispness.
In the distance you can just about make out the snow covered Andes. The water that irrigates the land is all channeled down from there via ancient river fed aqueducts making fertile land out of what was once desert.
Luckily we made it back (extremely slowly) without mishap, where we were greeted by Mr Hugo himself who had already gathered a pile of his customers and was plying them with some particularly potent non labelled wine that he seemed to have an endless supply of. It seemed rude not to, so we sat down for a quick one. After repeated top ups we were all entranced by Mr Hugo's parrot (pictured with the man himself) who had learnt to laugh in an outrageously sarcastic style as soon as laughter broke out among the group. It was immensely infectious and we were soon verging on hysteria.
After this we had to make a break for it to save ourselves from being totally incapacitated by the red wine and went outside to wait for the bus. Mr hugo followed us out and then jumped on the bus and paid for us all to get home! He was fab, a total legend. I'm sure future recommendations had a good deal to do with his hospitality, but it was still a fabulous experience.
On the bus home we arranged to meet up that evening with a group of Irish chaps and chapesses we had met and some nice English types. Unfortunately by the time we got back to Mendoza, Clairy was barely still with it. The only sensible stuff I could get out of her was that she was dying for a wee. We popped into a nearby coffee shop, and I got us a both a strong one in the hope it might sober her up so we could head out later to meet people, but after watching her spread most of it over the table in an attempt to get some sugar in we decided to head back to the room.
Here she is...still looking gorgeous. You'd never realise she barely had the power of speech and has no memory of this photo, let alone the cafe.
In the end I put her to bed and went out on my own. This wasn't really the best of plans. The last thing I remember is being admonished by the one of the Irish women for quoting an Alan Partridge joke about the U2 song Sunday Bloody Sunday (washing the car, mowing the bloody lawn etc). A definite lack of comedy judgement. Clairy said I was absolutely shot to pieces by the time I got home at 4:30am, but somehow I did.
We then had to change rooms about 3 hours later, a process I can only vaguely remember. Still we did love those wines, so it was all worth it.
1 comment:
Funnily enough, we have been drinking Mendoza wines. They must be on a promotion at the mo. Looks like a thoroughly Argentinian bender, just as good as any other. Mr Hugo was a nice bloke! xx
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