on friday, october the 24th, I (over)packed a suitcase and excitedly took a cab to the Jorge Newberry airport to reunite with my parents. I anxiously waited for a few minutes, pacing the floor of the main terminal, eyes glued to the automatic doors on both sides of the large room. it felt like an hour, but approximately five minutes later, I saw my mom, stylishly put together, wheeling her giant bags with my dad suited up walking right behind her. Instinctively I sprinted with more purpose than usual and of course tackled my favorite mother and father, possibly startling them just a bit.. From there, we boarded our plane to Mendoza City. Upon our arrival, we piled into a tiny little taxi. Well really it was a normal taxi but it seemed much smaller with both parents and 5 large suitcases with us! We rode through the neighborhoods to reach the heart of Mendoza City, where our hotel was. I remember my dad saying "this is just like the bahamas!" when we drove through the shantytowns and rural areas. I couldn't help but laugh at his first impression of South America.
for my 21st birthday, my mom gave me my great grandmother's engagement ring. We shared a birthday (sapphire is our birthstone) and I always loved this ring on her. My mom was thoughtful enough to give me a piece of my Mimi that I'll cherish for the rest of my life and pass down for generations! she brought it for me just while they were here so I could wear it for a few days. (ignore my stumpy fingers)
We arrived late in the afternoon at our hotel. It was in the center of town with its front yard being Plaza de Independencia (main plaza - the city has 4 satellite plazas for earthquake relief due to their totally destroying natural disaster back in the 1800s). After a quick walk about the property and a running-start belly flop on my fluffy white bed, the three of us, as great minds do think alike, decided it was wine o'clock. Our hotel has a little wine bar called The Vines, where we hungrily ordered just a light snack of empanadas, a cheese plate, pizza, meats, mixed nuts, and of course, malbec. After a moment of confusion seeing that there was no option to taste flights of wine, as we had originally read about The Vines, we resorted to wifi to investigate. As it turns out, the hotel was conning us. 'The Vines' is a hotel bar with overpriced meat pockets. 'The Vines OF MENDOZA' is a separate establishment to taste wines by the flight. We picked up and set off for the real vines of mendoza and I tasted my first malbec! Well, in the sense that I took little sips and tried to find "the notes." Lol.
After that, we were obviously not hungry for dinner, and my parents were exhausted from having travelled across the world, so we retired to our rooms, where I filled up the bubble bath (!!!!!!!!!!) and then mom and I watched modern family in our matching bath robes. Life is really, really hard, y'all.
The next morning, we enjoyed the beautiful bounty that is the Park Hyatt's buffet breakfast. Nom. At 9:30, we were introduced to our sweet driver Diego. Diego speaks perfect English, Spanish and Portuguese. He's married with three children. He's tall and wears hair gel. We liked him because he kept it real. We set off for the first vineyard of the day -and my first vineyard EVER- Viña Caro. It was conveniently just a few minutes away from the hotel, which was a major plus. The building itself didn't seem special, but as soon as I entered, I knew the exterior deceived me. Our guide (I never knew her hard to pronounce name) was a tiny little brunette who couldn't have been much older than me. She led us into the super humid room filled with oak barrels. It was a big dome lined with bricks. Kinda reminded me of an old medieval chamber.. but maybe that's just me? It is underground, and was built in 1895.
And the smell! The smell was divine. That yeasty, winey delicious smell. Nothin' betta. The vineyard was pretty tiny compared to the next one. We then moved from the underground chamber to the upstairs, a much more modern area, with beautiful wooden floors, walls lined with photos of friends of the vineyard, and a giant table set for four, with paper placemats, glasses, pens and a basket of crackers. The room was a magical sight. We were seated, Diego chilling with us as well. Our guide let us sample three malbecs. The first wine was 100% malbec - keep in mind that a malbec doesn't have to be ALL from the malbec grapes in order to be considered a malbec wine. I'm not going to bore you with each type of wine I drank, but at this point in time I knew less than nada about tasting wine, especially malbec. However, our guide taught me how to begin.
1. Eyes: Take the glass of wine and tilt it slightly so you can see it in the light. Look at the lightest/outermost color. Some wines are redder or more purple than others. Some are sort of brown, which means do NOT drink dat shit.
2. Nose: Smell the wine. Memorize the smell, noting the hints of whatever it is you may smell in the wine. Then, swirl the wine around to oxidize the wine. Smell again: it will change!
3. Mouth: taste that delicious wine!! She told me in order to properly taste it, you must literally slurp loudly, to a) get the oxygen in there and b) to make sure the wine gets to the taste buds further back in your mouth that are capable of tasting things the tip of your tongue cannot. As my friend Sonia says, this is precisely why it is just plain silly to spit when you're tasting.
Of course, I liked all three wines? But with my inexperience, how could I not? (Plus...It was 10:30 in the morning) :)
After our three wines, my dad purchased a few bottles to take home with him. Argentina only lets you take 6 bottles per person back to the states.. #buzzkill #literally. He tried to pay with a credit card, explaining that he had not yet exchanged his USD for pesos. Then, the credit card machine ~magically~ broke.. so she let him use his USD kindly at the worst exchange rate possible.. somewhere around 8 to 1. Where I exchange my bills I am able to get 14 pesos for each dollar, so that was a rip. Diego had our backs and very kindly lent us some pesos to buy wine at our next stop, Viña Cobos.
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We arrived at Viña Cobos at 12:30. Gosh, was it beautiful. A big modern chunk of building amidst miles of grape vines. Weirdly enough, a guy from my 12 person film class was there with his parents! Hi Adam! Soon, we were seated at the big wooden table in the middle of the large open space, complete with two tasting tables, a sitting area, and two enormous and super clean windows to admire the scenery - not just the vines, but also the Andes mountains in the background. Diego decided to taste with us this round, since he'd have to wait a few hours while we lunched without him. At Cobos, we got to pick our flight of wine, so Mom and I picked the trio of Malbecs, and Dad & Diego picked "The 4 Musketeers," 4 different vintages of the same Bramare Malbec. Again, I liked them all. In reality, it will probably take a much longer time for me to really be able to understand the differences between different wines their characteristics. Then again, we definitely were tasting some fine wines. And these people gave us cheese with our crackers.. now that's service! Malbec, as we know it in the States, is traditionally very fruit-forward, so it was definitely interesting to taste a whole lot of them and learn about the process of making wine. A few more wines purchased and we were on our way to Ruca Malen for lunch.
At 2:00, we got to our table in Ruca Malen's little restaurant. Things began to be a little hazy at this point. You can only taste so much wine in one day until they begin to run together. Here was the first place we tasted Torrontés, a traditional Argentine white. We had Malbec, Cab and even some bubbles. We took zero notes and just enjoyed ourselves.. or maybe that was just me. The food was the main event here. We had several courses: a delicious whipped beet appetizer, a little pot of locro, which is an old indigenous stew, a beautiful filet of beef with roasted veggies and balsamic reduction, and lastly a picturesque dessert of lavender-honey ice cream, quinoa puffs and liquid toffee. Om to the nom. We had officially been overstuffed with both food and drink and happily/sleepily enjoyed the hour ride home, with purple teeth, ready to NAP!
That night, we of course were again too full to dine, so Mom and I walked around Mendoza City and its main plaza. In the plaza was lots of park space, a modern art museum underground, a huge fountain celebrating the industrial revolution, and a street crafts fair, where vendors sold incense, spray paintings and jewelry, among other little "treasures."
The following morning, Sunday, we enjoyed our breakfast at our usual table and headed out
for our final day of tasting. First, to Clos de Los Siete. Basically this means 'club of the 7' because seven different famillies have properties that are scattered among this IMMENSE PIECE OF LAND. It's in caps because it is MASSIVE. This is one of the reasons Malbec is so cheap, aside from the exchange rate: they make tons of the stuff. There's simply wayyy more land here to grow grapes. Seriously though, it was like mondo. Our guide was young and very sweet, but had just starting working there last month and therefore knew zero of our questions for her which was frustrating. We had to move around the property via car because it was so immense, but when we got to Monteviejo, we stopped. There we toured the large building's many rooms full of giant steel tanks - it reminded me a lot of my dad's hair gel plant in Frazier.. just.. bigger. Much bigger. We stepped outside and snapped some photos of the breathtaking view.
Then we entered the tasting room. We had malbecs mostly, but we also had a cold malbec rosé that mom and I really enjoyed mainly because there was no AC in there and it was hot as ballz. Our guide had clearly just taken some half-empty bottles from the fridge and served them, which made my dad pretty unhappy. However, the Seven teamed up to create a perfect blend, approved by some famous french wine guy named Michele. It was delicious. We didn't end up buying any wines there, but at each place we purchased a corkscrew as a souvenir... which got confiscated in security at the airport.. lol. We left the laaaaarge vineyard and set off for our last vineyard - and my, did we save the best for last!!!
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Gimenez Riili. I love you. Google it. My current profile pic on FB is there. It was magic. Pure magic. The weather was perfect- dry and warm, but with a cool breeze. Our guide was actually a member of the Gimenez family which was pretty sweet. He took us through the tiny space of steel tanks, where we tasted a very very recent batch of wine straight from the tap that still tasted like grape soda. Then, we tasted a scrumptious cab that I really enjoyed. When we walked out of there, we walked through the door and were instantly taken to another world of beauty. I wish I could teleport here every day. No description I write will do this place justice, nor photos. There was a little porch with a coffee table, a bench and a linen hammock. Behind it were the thousands of grape vines, in front of the Andes and the cloudy but blue sky. I immediately knew: this is my happy place.
Our guide was so incredibly friendly and warm. He welcomed us with a glass of champagne as we followed him up the gravel pathway to our table, one of four, where we would lunch. We had empanadas - not like Elena's, but flakier and smokier after having been cooked in a mud oven. We also enjoyed some parilla style pork, beef/steak and some killer quince ice cream (mom ate the flan). Everything really was delicious, and amplified by the grandeur and beauty of our view as we enjoyed each other's company at our happy little table under our happy little wooden canopy. Everything was right with the world at that moment in time, and my memory will always remain of that precious place. As soon as we put our forks down, the skies opened and it began to pour. We took refuge in the little tasting room in between the porch and the tank room, where we met a pair of Brazilian men. Tipsy Neely and her mom decided they were fluent in Portuguese, even though I have only taken two semesters. Surprisingly enough, they did understand what I was saying, but it was at preschool level. But if you know me, you know I'm all over that kind of stuff. Understanding people sure is cool! A few minutes later, Diego rolled up and we rolled out, saying our fond farewells to the Argentine wine country.
i'm so so so glad that i took this 2.5 minute long video - we'll always hold on to this special memory!
After, I taught my parents the true virtue of patience while experiencing true Argentine service at a normal restaurant for dinner (this is why a 10% tip is nice). After a solid night's sleep, on Monday afternoon, we set off for the city!!! The three of us sat together in our brand new LAN airplane, excited for what was to come. I'm so happy I got to spend some quality time with my favorite people in the world! Stay tuned as I work my brain for more details :)
b e s o s s s s s <3
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