MENDOZA…

After a bad taste in our mouth we arrived at the “Mekka” of the  south american wines… Mendoza… with lots of hope that we can save the feeling of a “not soooo bad Argentina”… The sun is shining and i see nothing else around but grape-fields… just beautiful. My mouth is already filled with the sensation of a gorgeous Malbec….

The city is tiny – surrounded with massive amount of wineyards (and little orange oil rigs as well). City center? Hmmmmm… not really my style. Maybe because of the “boxing day” – it was full of people shopping on full speed. The streets reminds us our old little downtown, Békéscsaba. After checking around back to the hostel and get an organized wine-tour in the 2 major región: Maipu and Lujan de Cuyo.

First we got a traditional bodega in Maipu, Cavas de Don Arturo – a little family business working with old machines and small barrels using only red grapes (cabernet, shiraz, merlot and malbec).

They ve been telling there family story and the facts about manufacturing grapes in this deserted región. We tired a couple of their your and oak-aged wines. Well….not bad, but low cost budget.

Meanwhile not to get drunk – we visited a local olive oil farm.

We saw the main steps of the proccess of oil making then trying some of the factory·s products like sundried tomatoes,

tapenade and olive oils infused with different stuffs… was a pretty cool place.

But not to get thirsty too much – we visited another bodega in Lujan de Cuyo región, Cavas de Weinert which is a bit bigger one then the one before… they are working with big barrels and longer ageing  time (mínimum 2 years) and using some white grapes as well.

They just make the wine and then sell it when the market is open. The little family business were growing their own grapes actually and put their wine on the market when the wine is ready – not when the market is. Big difference. We tried wines here as well… were dancing on a médium budget. Obviouly they didnt let us to try any of the “big dogs”, just some young cabernet, mix and sauvignon… And our guide was talking less english then my dog. Wasnt too helpful poor girl. Anyway. It was cool staying down at the cellars between more then 200 old oak barrels… smells acient and respectful. Love wine.

Our tour had surprisingly good price-value balance, i can recommend this company to anyone (Huentata). We paid 340 peso per person – and if u check wineyards individually on the internet (there are plenty, the price will be around 300-500 peso but its just for one bodega).

Basically our day was almost ending… we needed to hunt down a supermarket to make some dinner (was faaar away so started to worry about the temperatur of the beers we bought). Just some “not worth to mention” raviolies ala arrabiata. Anyway – after the dinner, a little refreshing storm, and some beers on the rooftop i was honestly thinking that we could manage to turn our negative emotions into positives about Argentina.

Maybe we just had massive bad luck with people, accomodation, bank system and local public transport…. but Mendoza for this day was spot on.  Nobody f*cked us up and nothing bad happened. Well, the people having no smile on their face, not too helpful – and they dont like to work much… but u can swallow this if u are cool enough. Not all of us have this type of good quality life that gives a reason to wake up with a smile every morning. Thanks God for that!

Soooooo we went for a sleep with satisfaction – we love Mendoza. And if u think that we can have a happy end…. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

Just for a last touch of this country: nice big banch of bed bugs covering me all night long giving me massive sh*t for the next days. Nightmare.

Thank U Argentina. Lets get the f*ck out of here.

To be continued on the way to Chile….