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Published: November 8th 2012
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Our hostel was able to give us basic directions to "Mr. Hugos" bike rental. Turns out Mr. Hugo runs the bike mafia of Maipu, and if you want a bike you have to go through him. Which, as it seems, is fine by me as the whole company (Mr and Mrs hugo, and who I can only assume was their daughter) were super friendly and gave us a great map of all the vineyards to visit. I will say the map was a bit misleading as the vineyards seemed to be a bit further than we expected, but it was also 100 degrees out, so anything other than the place next door was too far.
Our first stop was a vineyard called Mevi, which was set back off the road and gave us a great selection of wines to start with. Pairing that with a pretty delicious pasta dish was exactly what we needed to start off our marathon wine tasting day.
Next we went to the vineyard next door Vina de Cerno. Here we misunderstood the tasting guide and somehow ended up with 4 huge classes of wine. This was a good icebreaker for the 10 British guys
sitting next to us who found it entertaining to see us eye down our wine. They immediately started talking about the US presidental election, which Abby and I traveled to the other end of the world to avoid. We managed to get them back on track by figuring out which vineyards to go to next. They tried to get us to skip the rest of the vineyards and head straight to the beer garden but we were strong and carried on.
Right on across the street to the third vineyard. This was Tempus Alma, which had a self guided tour which we half walked through and then headed to their tasting patio overlooking the vineyard. We tried a few more wines and decided that there was a good reason this area was known for its Malbecs.
Our fouth stop was the biggest of all the vineyards, Vistandes, which had an intense security guard out front and gave us our first official vineyard tour. Although this was the biggest of all the vineyards, it was still small enough that they dont sell their wines out of the area, so Abby and I were sure to pick up a bottle
to take home...whether this makes it all the way back to the states or not is a different story.
For our fifth stop we decided to hit up a olive oil maker, however, we got lost and ended up cruisng down the highway. It took us about a mile to figure out we had gone the wrong way when we finally turned around and head back. Once we made it back to our last vineyard we sat down in the shade for a minute as it was brutely hot out. it was at this point I figured out I hadnt seen my camera for a while and decided to look for it. Sure enough it was no where to be found. Abby and I retraced the last mile to no avail. We sat disgruntled in the sun when a Medoza Police officer stopped and asked us if we are okay. I guess hes use to tourists getting drunk and passing out on their way back. He offered to ride along the road where we went one more time to check for the camera, although he had no better luck than we had.
Unfortunately this ate up the rest
of our tasting time so we decided to head back. It was probably for the best since we were already super dehydrated.
For dinner we found this super chic restaurant that was pretty well hidden. It involved us walking into an unmarked building and taking an elevator built for 2 up to the roof top. Here there was an amazing restaurant with unparralled views of the city. It was the perfect end to our first day in Mendoza...too bad I didn't have a camera to take any pictures!
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XChief6
Steve Johnson
A sacrifice must be made ...
... and when a cell phone isn't handy, what are you going to do?!?