Mendoza

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We arrived in Mendoza by plane from Iguazu. We took a taxi to our hotel and the taxi driver gave us information regarding wine tasting. We were booked at the Sheraton using points for five nights and we thought this would be a good time to relax and enjoy a nice hotel. The hotel is right downtown so we could walk into town anytime we wanted. The hotel has a hot pool, picture a pool size hot tup which we enjoyed as well as the steam baths. It was great having nice beds and towels every day. In South America many small hotels do not give you fresh towels every day. We took two wine tasting tours, no drinking and driving for us. We also toured an olive oil factory. Two of the winerys we visited were old wineries that make wine the old way, hand picking the grapes and first storing the wine in cement vats before moving the wine to oak barrels. The other wineries were modern wineries making wine that same way we do in California. Some our favorite wineries were Wineart, Cavas de Don Arturo, Rutini, Trapiche and Lopez. We wish we could have bought more wine but we were flying out and could only buy a few bottles to take with us. As luck would have it our tour van was in an accident on the way back from wine tasting. A car did not see us stop and hit us full forse from behind. The car had a lot of damage and it took several men working to pry the driver out of the car. We were held up waiting for the police and ambulance but the driver declined to go to the hospital. No one on our bus complained of wip lash so that was good.

Mendoza harvest was in full swing, we did not plan this so we just lucked out. We were able to watch the full operation from crushing to bottling. To celebrate the harvest Mendoza had wine tasting in the evenings. There were 204 different bottles of wine available to taste. You buy a large glass and four tastes of premium wine or a small glass and six tastes of regular wine. We went with the premium tastes, Lopez had a 1998 Cabernet/Merlot/Malbec available to taste as well as 2004 and 2006 wines in the premium division. The tastes were almost full glasses of wine. There was also a stage set up and the Harvest queen was chosen. It is held outside so anyone can watch. I would recommend Mendoza only for wine lovers and for about three days. We did not regret our visit because we got to relax and stay in a nice hotel for a change.

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Photos

We bought a memory chip for our new camera.
The store owner took our picture.