Sipping Wine in Mendoza With New Friends

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Mendoza - Malbec and More

Before arriving in Mendoza Eric’s friend Jessica introduced us to Marcelo, who organizes wine tours in the area around Mendoza. We were not sure of our schedule before getting there and by the time we settled on a date to arrive in Mendoza Marcelo was booked, but he arranged for us to take a tour with one of his friends. The evening we arrived, Marcelo stopped by the hostel to introduce himself and ensure that we were okay doing our tour with his friend, David. Marcelo made a wonderful first impression trying to welcome us to his city.

David arrived Wednesday morning with a driver to take us through a tour of the Lujan de Cuyo wine country. We started at Achaval Ferrer, a smaller but higher end winery which was a collaboration between an Italian and two Argentines. We first took a very detailed tour of the winery, with an explanation on how they create the wines they do. I have only been to Napa and Sonoma during one wine tasting trip and it involved hitting a bunch of wineries in one day, stopping in to taste, and that was it. In Mendoza, we visited six wineries in two days and at each one received a detailed tour of the facility. I learned way more than I have at any of the wineries in California. After our tour at Achaval Ferrer, we sat with some other people to conduct a tasting outside of the winery, under a vine covered patio, overlooking those beautiful Andes Mountains. We had a nice little group with two “non practicing” lawyers from NYC and two older couples who were from Chicago. One of the couples lives in Hyde Park and the other on Wellington in Lakeview Chicago, about one half block from us. We figured out we were neighbors, which is another example of how small the world really is. He worked at Goldman Sachs for years and they just recently retired to Boulder, Colorado. So, as much as we were neighbors, we shared the experience of trying to sell our respective homes, and currently have renters instead. Even though we called ourselves neighbors, we really just both owned property about a block from each other and were currently sipping wines in Argentina.

After the first tasting, we made our way to Septima, one of the larger and more commercial wineries in Mendoza. It is referred to as Septima because it was the seventh winery to open in a series of eleven wineries owned by the same company. They have a total of nine wineries in Spain, one in Mendoza, and one in California. We started this tour with a four course tasting lunch with wine pairings on a gorgeous patio, of course, overlooking the Andes. I forgot how much I do enjoy a good meal and a great glass of wine. I would not say the food was the best I ever had, but considering the lack of sophistication in the food we have eaten along this trip, it was a nice change. Now, this meal was a little outside of our normal budget on this trip, but in comparison to how much a comparable meal at a Napa winery would cost, it was a steal at less than $40 a person. We started with a pickled trout appetizer, with toasted bread and two kinds of cheese (oh how I missed cheese when we were in Asia) paired with a crisp rose wine. Then, we had some baby empanadas, one stuffed with blood sausage, which was actually pretty good. Then, we enjoyed an osso bucco with a side of pork (they love their meat in this country - where else do you get meat with a side of meat), followed by an amazing pear ravioli desert, in a cool pear soup. Everything was tasty, and after four glasses of wine, we were certainly ready to taste some more. I just wished I had time for a mini siesta. Marcelo should work that into the tour somehow.

A week after this private wine tour, Eric and I did another wine tour, with a group, on a bus. It was certainly not as good as our private tour with David (which is why anyone who goes to Mendoza should get in touch with Marcelo). During our second wine tour, our first stop was Septima. With something like 700 wineries in the area, I never thought we would visit one of the wineries twice, but it worked out well. During our first tour, our guide was the Septima sommelier, who spoke at great length about how they make their wine and about the quality. During our second trip, our tour guide was Juan, who is in the corporate and marketing side of the Septima business. He explained the business of Septima, which was very interesting to me.

He explained the difference in the marketing that is necessary for their wines destined to the US market in comparison to the UK market. First, they ship to the UK in boxes that hold only six wines. Generally, Brits buy their wine individually and not in a case. They ship to the US in a 12 bottle case, which I know from experience, encourages people to buy 12 bottles at a time for the 5% or 10% discount. Also, the boxes that go to the UK are very plain, whereas the Americans expect even the cardboard box to be decorative. As for the label itself, the Brits think that if a wine has a fancy label that it is not a good wine because the company is using the fancy label to disguise an awful wine - spending more time on marketing than quality. Whereas in the US many people buy wines based on how attractive the label is, thinking if it is fancy outside, it is fancy inside.

He also explained that they sell their higher end wine under a different label in the US. Their base line wine is entitled Septima, whereas their higher end wine (which we tried during our lunch) is called Septima Dia, which translates to seventh day. In Argentina, they believe that the seventh day is a day of rest, and Sunday is a wonderful day to relax and enjoy wine. They cannot sell the wine under the Septima Dia brand in the US, however, because of complaints from some of the more religious states that you cannot make reference to the holy day while marketing wine. I find that fairly interesting for two reasons. First, it highlights how much more religious the US is than many other countries, which many Americans find surprising. Second, the initial purpose of the wine industry in Argentina was to provide wine to the Catholic Church for its services. I won’t espouse my religious beliefs here, but thought the tour was informative. I, certainly, would not find offense to a wine entitled Seventh Day in the US.
The third winery we visited with David was Carmelo Patti, a small winery owned by an older gentleman. Wine is his second career. He was born in Sicily and moved to Argentina when he was very young. He only manufactures a few wines each year and a limited number of bottles. His operation is literally run from his garage. It is a big garage, but still. His passion for his wines truly came through in its flavor. It was the only winery we visited where we actually met the wine maker. We also ran into Marcelo on the tour he had scheduled for the day. The wines were fabulous, and we were eager to make a purchase. It was one of the highlights of our day.

Argentine Medieval Banquet

A week after our initial wine tour, we booked a less expensive tour through the hostel. Instead of an individual car and guide, we boarded a bus with 11 other people to tour the wineries. As I mentioned, our first stop was Septima. Our second stop was a boutique winery that specializes in organic wines, Familia Cecchin. I learned there that I like my wines with chemicals. We only tried two wines: a sweet white based on the muscat grape and a red that was fine, okay, but nothing to write home about. Their claim to fame is that they use no chemicals and in some of their wines that are labeled 100% organic, they do not use sulfur. I think I like the chemically wines more.

After, we visited another small winery that only exports to Australia, Spain, China, and Japan, a winery called Carmine Grenata. They were very proud of the exclusivity of their wine, but I thought that strange because I don’t think of the Chinese and the Japanese as having a very sophisticated palate. They are fairly new to wine. Eric assumed it was because if the Chinese were told a wine was exclusive and not sold in the US they would probably want to buy it by the case. The two wines we tasted were good, but they were most proud of their reserve wine, in which they only produce 4,000 bottles a year. She showed us where the 1999 vintage was stored in their cellar and was very proud of the exclusivity. This was certainly an example of the value present in Argentinean wines. The fantastic bottle of 2003 Cabernet we bought from Carmelo Patti on our tour with David cost $15. We bought a bottle of extra brut sparkling wine from Septima for less than $10. At Carmine Grenata their super exclusive wine retailed for $70 a bottle. A veritable steal. Even at Achaval Ferrer, which had the most expensive wines we saw, most of them retailed for between $25 and $75. We were buying decent drinkable bottles from the super market for less than $4. It is such a great value area for wine!

After we finished our second tour I was not as satisfied as I felt after our tour with David. Granted, our tour with David was a more expensive day, but we felt more exclusive. During our second, large group tour, I felt there was something lacking in the day. Part of it was probably because I was hungry. Our tour held off lunch for the last stop, so it was after 2pm before we ate. We stopped at Cava de Cano for a set lunch for our group of 13. We were told as we were walking in that we would want to get a picture of the table before eating - our guide was right. I have never seen a table so full of food before, even during a thanksgiving dinner. It more resembled a medieval banquet with platters and glasses covering every inch of the table. We had four large platters of various cheeses and cured meats. We each had a small wood cutting board that was our plate. Then, there must have been 100 different smaller plates of various size filled with pickled vegetables (yes, vegetables in Argentina), chilies, olives, various kinds of beans and lentils, red cabbage, sliced grilled corn, grilled whole onions and garlic, and more. We could not even figure out how to pass the dishes because there were so many. We gorged ourselves for about an hour on not just the platters on the table but several different hot tapas including a hot pastry pouch of vegetables and cheese, a meat empanada, a baked rice dish topped with cheese, and finally homemade spaghetti with Bolognese. They also poured a red wine quite liberally during the entire meal. When I thought I could eat another morsel, an ice cream sundae appeared, and I ate every last drop. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

That night I napped for about two hours to recover. Eric and I made some store bought ravioli and sauce and vegged at the hostel all night. The wine tasting part of the tour was, honestly, nothing to write home about, but that lunch made the $40 per person day all worthwhile. That lunch was amazing and certainly something to remember. To hell with the lack of fresh vegetables, I could get use to this food.

Argentine Weekends

As I mentioned before, we spent our first Friday in Mendoza on our adventure day. We woke up Saturday morning sore from horseback riding and my abs hurt, I could not tell if it was from the riding or the zip line, but I was sore. We spent the day relaxing, napping, walking the town, and enjoying the absolutely perfect weather. That night we arranged to have a drink with Marcelo, the owner of the wine tour company we used earlier in the week. Marcelo picked us up around 7pm and we rode over to Ave Villanueva, otherwise known as bar street. We found an outdoor restaurant and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine while Marcelo talked with us about his city, the time he spent in Canada working, and why he returned home. He also explained that because it was a Saturday with such perfect weather, that most people would stay up all night to enjoy the evening and would not go to bed until dawn. I knew I could not do that. The night we stayed up until 4am in Cordoba was the latest I have been up in who knows how long and I was hurting the next day. We knew on Sunday we had plans that were supposed to start at 1pm - that was in the back of my mind.

Marcelo said his goodbyes to head home to his family a little before 9pm. He was scheduled to pick up his family, help a friend move, and THEN do an asado with his friend, if that gives you an understanding of how he planned on spending his late Saturday night. As for us, we wandered up and down the road and ended up back at the same restaurant for pasta and beef. We then went down the street to the Big Bang bar for a 2 for 25 pesos Fernet and Coke special, with an outdoor table. We were taking Marcelo’s recommendation that we enjoy the evening. We then met two travelers from Manchester and we started chit chatting. Next thing you know it was 4am; again. How does this keep happening to us???? We made our way home and were greeted with a note from a friend of a friend of a friend providing us with directions on how to start our Sunday in Mendoza. All I was able to realize was that we needed to leave the hostel at 10:30, which seemed like a ridiculously short amount of time to sleep. We thought we were due to meet people at 1pm, but now it was 10:30. I guess we were truly experiencing Argentinean life because I knew I would be getting about five hours of sleep. I also realized that maybe I needed to say goodbye to my Fernet and Coke habit.

Day in the Wine Country

Some things we have done on this trip just don’t work out no matter how hard we try. We mess up with transportation so that it takes us twice as long to get some place. We have bad days. We order bad food. The Sunday we spent in Mendoza was not one of these bad days. Thanks to the joys of Facebook we ended up meeting a wonderful group of transplant Mendozians who welcomed us, as strangers, with open arms, to a typical Sunday in the wine country. There is a bit of a back story though.

Awhile back Eric started to, excuse my language, but pimp himself out on Facebook, becoming friends with anyone and everyone. If he even recognized a name he would add that person as a friend. One of his former co-workers, Madhu, was Facebook friends with Megan McCormick. I think the name sounded familiar to Eric so he added her as a friend and she confirmed. When we were still in Asia we were trying to research Argentina and he posted a status update on Facebook asking for some suggestions on where to go. Megan was one of the people who responded with a lot of helpful tips. As she was posting to Eric’s page he started paying attention and wondered who she was and why her name sounded familiar. That was when he figured it out.

We are addicted to almost every travel show on TV that is worth watching. You know already how we feel about Anthony Bourdain, but we also have been watching Rick Steves, Samantha Brown, and Rudy Maxa for years. Another of our favorites is Globe Trekker, a backpacker focused show with some great hosts including Ian Wright, Justine Shapiro, and Megan McCormick. That is why her name sounded familiar to Eric when he added her as a friend on Facebook. In Hanoi, Eric said to me, “I am getting recommendations on Argentina from Megan McCormick, could that be the Globe Trekker host? “ And, after checking out her page, we figured out it was her. Of course we would trust her advice, she was an expert. Megan was the person who recommended Hostel Alamo, and that turned out well. We hoped to meet Megan while we were in Mendoza, and she agreed. We did not realize, though, how incredibly generous she would be with this invitation. After we arrived in Mendoza, Megan told us that one of her friends, Langdon, was working on some wine and food pairings, and was planning on doing a lunch on Sunday, would we be interested? Well of course.

On that way too early Sunday morning, we finally read the note that Langdon left for us at our hostel to give us walking directions to his apartment, about one block away (it read “your mission, should you choose to accept it . . . “). I was still a little fuzzy in the morning and we asked Max at the hostel to confirm the map and to tell us which way to go. Max read the map, saw the address, and said “I know this guy.” Apparently, Langdon, an American, came to Mendoza several years ago and never left. He actually lived at Hostel Alamo for eight months before finally moving out, just down the road, to an apartment owned by the owner of the hostel. So, we walked a block away and rang a buzzer at an apartment having no idea what to find. We were greeted by Langdon and Chrissie in their apartment doing final preparations for the lunch before we grabbed a taxi to head out to a winery, Hacienda Del Plata. Chrissie works in sales and marketing at Hacienda Del Plata. It is a small, family owned winery. The family allows Chrissie, who is a former Canadian government employee and now a chocolatier and a sommelier in training, to use the winery when it is closed.

We tried to help with the lunch, by setting up a long table on a covered patio overlooking the vineyards and, most of all, by staying out of Langdon’s way. After a bit of time Megan showed up with her husband, who she met while filming Globe Trekker, her adorable 5 year old little girl, and her mother who was visiting from Tampa. We sat outside and watched Langdon, the grill master, work the asado while getting to know one another better. It was inspirational to hear the stories of how they all ended up in Mendoza. Langdon, as I mentioned, came and never left. He knew Megan and her husband Gethin from the TV world since he has spent time doing IT work and as a camera man in his prior life. Megan and Gethin wanted to leave NYC for a different lifestyle and the ability to actually be able to afford to send their daughter for an education, a near impossibility in NYC. Megan and Gethin took Langdon’s word that he loved Mendoza and joined him there. Chrissie is the most interesting. I have never been into yoga or meditation, but it has always intrigued me. Chrissie had an image in her head of a place she should live while meditating. When she arrived in Mendoza the image in her head was identical to the image of the snow capped Andes in the distance. She knew it was meant to be. I believe her on this one.

While waiting for the food, a cheese and pate was placed near the grill. And, Langdon produced a meat he had cured himself in the wine cellar of the winery. I don’t know that I have ever met a person who has cured their own meat before, let alone one that was as unbelievably excited as he was to showcase his cured to meat to us. It was smooth and tasty, I have to say, although I don’t know if I have had anything to compare it to before.

When the food was ready we sat down to eat at our beautiful wood table overlooking the vineyards. I could not have asked for a more perfect view on a more perfect day. Our meal started with a smoked curry chicken dish and an eggplant walnut ricotta spread, both paired with a fantastic rose wine from Hacienda Del Plata. I do enjoy a good rose on occasion, particularly in the warm weather. And, I have done wine tastings and food pairings in the past, but this was incredibly educational. I swear that the wine tasted totally different with each of the two foods on my plate. With the chicken there was a more fruity taste, with a little kick or bite to the wine, from the spices used in the chicken. With the eggplant, the flavor of the wine was more smooth and creamy. I kept rotating the foods back and forth to confirm what I was tasting. As I said - educational.

After Langdon brought out a few cuts of meat from the grill that were phenomenal. He learned his asado skills from an 80 year old Argentine. We tasted lavender seasoned pork ribs with pomegranate molasses, which had a sweet and crispy outer shell. He also served a rib eye with a mushroom polenta which was fantastic. With this course he tried to pair it with two wines, Paso Doble, a Malbec blend from the winery Masi, and a Bonarda from Serrera Vineyards. I had never tasted a Bonarda grape before and it demonstrates that there is more to Mendoza than Malbec. First I noticed that I thought both the wines worked well with the meat, but not with the polenta. The polenta was too strong and over powering, but when we tried some of the rose with the polenta, it was a perfect match. I will say the entire meal was educational. How can this be? When I have done tastings in the past with wine pairings someone usually suggests a wine to work with a particular food, but to try multiple foods with one wine to see how they work with each other and to try multiple wines with a single course was inspirational and gave me a better understanding of what it means to match a food and wine together.

After the meal, we chatted, helped to clean up (although we were told to leave the kitchen during the cleanup), and played with Megan’s daughter in the backyard before heading back to the city. We arrived around 6:30pm and assumed that Eric and I would go home, drink some water, and probably take a nap. But, Chrissie and Langdon were not done with us yet. Chrissie, the chocolatier, made some truffles for desert but left them in the fridge when we drove out to the winery, so we were invited back for some more rose wine and some amazing truffles. She tried something new with three different chocolate truffles wrapped inside a pasty, like a dessert empanada. It was fabulous. Both Langdon and Chrissie said we were their guinea pigs for the day to taste their new foods or their pairings. We were more than happy to be their test runs. It was a fantastic day.

We stayed up talking for awhile and finally headed back to the hostel around 11pm. I could not believe not only what a wonderful day we had, but that we just spent over 12 hours hanging out with two people who were complete strangers to us earlier that morning. Moreover, getting to know Megan and her family, to hear some of their stories, and just to spend a beautiful day in the country with some amazingly friendly people - it was a day I won’t soon forget. And, Madhu, thanks so much for the introduction.

Mendoza Says Adios to Us

Our last day in Mendoza was not all that successful. I knew our track record on trying to leave the city. We kept trying to leave, and would go to the reception at the hostel with a now familiar cry “Max, we need a few more nights.” After almost 2 weeks in Mendoza, we planned on leaving Mendoza on a Sunday because everything in Argentina is closed on a Sunday, and it is a good travel day. We woke up Saturday morning before leaving and the weather had turned cold over night. The day before, I sat in the courtyard at the hostel in my bathing suit top soaking in the sun and now I walked out wearing pants, socks, jacket, etc. We went for breakfast at Quinta Norte and for the first time in two weeks we needed to sit inside because it was so cold.

We bought our bus tickets for Sunday successfully. We came back to the hostel for awhile and for lunch tried to repeat a lunch I had last week. At a restaurant called Belgrano a few blocks from the hostel, I had an absolutely fantastic burger that rivaled the “Works Burger” we had in New Zealand. It was a good piece of meat with cheese, lettuce, tomato, egg, peppers, and a spicy sauce. I went when Eric was not feeling well and I thought he needed to experience the burger. I ordered the exact same burger - the hamburgesa especial but she brought us something totally different. It was a burger that would be served on the new Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel. It was huge - the size of a nine inch plate, with no fancy sauce. I told the server it was way too big and she told me I was mistaken, but I knew what I ordered and this was wrong. Too big; totally disappointed.

After lunch, we picked up our laundry at a place we went to two times before. It was always the same price, 14 pesos. When Eric dropped it off in the morning it was the same price, but when we picked it up a woman we never saw working there before charged us double saying it was too much laundry for one bag. She held our laundry ransom, but like the guy in Shanghai who raised his price when we picked up our laundry. I tried to argue with her in Spanish, but we felt like we need to pay the total to get our clothes back. This was just not turning out to be a successful day.

After a few hours back at the hostel we went out for our last meal in Mendoza. Despite being not too hungry we agreed to go back to La Barra, partly because I just published the last blog entry and looked at the pictures of the tasty and delectable bife de chorizo. We grabbed a bottle of wine from our stash in the hostel and walked over to La Barra - it was CLOSED. We were devastated and stood outside wondering what to do. I asked a couple sitting outside of a gelato restaurant, in Spanish, if they lived in Mendoza and where they would recommend eating. Turns out, they are from Mendham, New Jersey, the same town where my brother and sister grew up and next to where I went to high school. It is certainly a small world.

In the end, we ended up eating at a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet around the corner from the hostel, La Mira. We saw many people dining there in past nights, although it was empty this night. I ordered a pork loin with fruit chutney and mashed potatoes with mushrooms and leeks. The flavor was okay. I felt like I was in a Gordon Ramsey Kitchen Nightmares episode - we are in Argentina, the land of fantastic meat and asados and you try to mask a gringo cut of pork that was at least 85% fat with a crappy sweet “chutney” and awful mash potatoes. Keep it simple - fresh, local ingredients and simple preparation is Gordon’s mantra. In a country where I spent almost four weeks eating the most fantastic meat known to man (and I am not even a meat eater in the US, probably because of the garbage they pass off as meat) this restaurant managed to completely mess it up and serve total crap. Eric’s rib eye steak was also nothing to write home about, layered with a thick piece of grilled provolone cheese. As we cursed LaBarra for being closed and forcing us to eat this awful meal, I had a memory.

We left Chicago for the M.P. in the worst winter we had in the five years we spent there. I felt like the weather was so cold and so snowy that by the end of January we had about five years of nasty weather smashed into the two months of winter. I made the comment that Chicago was kicking us in the rear end with a steel toed boot to get us out of town. Mendoza felt the same way about us. We loved every day we spent in Mendoza and as soon as we decided to leave the city, the city was not too happy with us - from the time we woke up until we went to bed, it was easily the worst day we had in the city. We are hoping to hit Mendoza again on the way back out of Argentina at the end of the year. It is the only way that we can get back what we love about Mendoza. Even Dario at the hostel agreed we needed to return to rectify things. I cannot imagine this Saturday as our last experience in Mendoza. It just would not be right. We need a more appropriate goodbye, and as we headed to Chile in the morning I say Adios to Mendoza, but I will know it will not be permanent. It is an “Hasta Luego” - we WILL return.

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Photos

Achaval Ferrer
A mighty fine and fancy feeling winery.

View of the Andes
From our tasting at Achaval Ferrer

Septima
The industrial and commercial winery.

Time for Siesta
After our meal at Septima I could totally go for a Siesta, but we still had two more tours and tastings to go.

Carmelo Patti
The cutest Sicilian man in Mendoza.

The Medieval Banquet
Words cannot describe this meal...

Wine With Marcelo
Our Mendoza wine expert

Hacienda Del Plata
The location of our Sunday fiesta - a little bit of the heavenly life.

Before
The ribs on the left with lavender. Langdon is a little bit of an evil genius.

Langdon and Cured Meat
He cured his own meat in the wine cellar and was so proud. The result: tasty, creamy, meaty goodness.

Eric "Meats" His New Best Friend
Eric is trying to learn the grill.

Veggin at the Hacienda
Watching Langdon at work on the grill.

Self Portrait
The beauty of Hacienda Del Plata in the background.

Me, Megan, and Eric
On this trip, it does not take much to impress me; despite that it was inspirational to meet people who are creative and are following their dream . . .