Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Mendoza and the Vineyards

Mendoza is one of the smaller cities we've visited, which was a nice change from the constant bustle of major cities. All the streets are tree lined and wide, terraced with mismatched somewhat doll-style houses. Water streams down the deep man made gutters either side of the road providing the drier areas with running water.

On our second day we went down to the vineyards by bus and rented bikes to cycle the 12km round trip in the intense heat. Luckily most of the mid day heat was blocked by the hundreds of trees shading the road. Either side of our path were miles and miles of vineyards, lines and lines of perfectly symmetrical trees in the foreground of landscape that was so vivid, it almost appeared as false as an oversized painting in front of us. The back drop was the enormous snow covered Andes, seemingly impossible with the 32 degree sun beating down.

We stopped off at the first winery, a young winery which has only been producing wine for the last 4 years. We got a brief tour of the place, how the wine is made, aged, bottled, labelled and in some cases, aged even further in the bottle. The tasting gave us a chance to sample their younger non aged wines, their semi-aged wines and their premium wines.

Having seen a sign for a vodka distillery, we agreed that it would be stupid not to investigate, even though it had not been on our marked out map. We took a side road, off the beaten track past some vicious dogs until we arrived at what we presumed must be the distillery. The image before us was that of something from a teen horror movie. A massive iron slide door loomed above us. The walls surrounding the distillery were topped with broken glass, presumably to stop intruders climbing them. We knocked on the massive door, letting out a massive metal echo. No reply. So we tried again. A man spoke from the other side of the divide. In Spanish he more or less told us to go away. In Spanish, again, we asked were they closed, the reply was affirmative and with that we switched to English. We told the man that we'd come all the way from England, this time, the reply in English, was much more welcoming; 'Oh, you speak English!' A small square window opened just large enough to see the man's face. He scoped us out for a second and closed the small window and slid back the enormous door. On the other side was a huge courtyard, a small table in the middle that a woman was sitting at with some water and vodka. To the right there was an iron cylinder, horizontally positioned with a fire burning in it, like a bbq set up.
The man, a short stocky bald figure, was Hungarian, from Budapest. He spoke perfect English and once we got chatting to him, he was more than happy to show us around. He took us into his distillery, a massive old warehouse-only encouraging my envisions of the torture movie which I couldn't push out of my mind. His vodka was made from Malbec wine, hence being among all the vineyards. He triple distilled the wine so as to still keep the scent and taste of the grape. We tasted the ice cold vodka, which can't be denied, did have a certain kick of wine to it, an unusual but interesting taste. A certain benefit to making his product unique on the market of average grain vodkas. Before leaving we bought a bottle, which has yet to be drunk but will have a good send off I'm sure.

We remounted our bikes and headed off to another winery. Having already seen how wine was made etc. we decided to sit back and enjoy the wine in local wineries, buying a bottle at each place we stopped. The region mainly produces Malbec, so it was all red wines and roses. Before long, the time came to return the bikes, just as well as by this stage the wine was taking it's toll.

As far as Mendoza goes, there aren't many other activities to take advantage of. Unless we wanted to go trekking, which, from my entire Machu Picchu Inka trekking experience went, I can safely say the idea of trekking will always turn my stomach somewhat.

So we chilled in Mendoza for the next few days by the pool, occasionally walking around the city to sample some Argentine meat for the last time.

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