Me Gusta Vino y Bodegas!

First things first, before I go on about the Winery tour I wanted to say quickly Anna and I attended a wonderful BBQ (they are quite a tradition here) at the hostel on Sunday night. It didn´t start until 11pm, that is Argentina for you. But the meat was really amazing, probably the best I have had here so far, and might I say that I am very much looking forward to becoming a vegetarian again when I get home. This trip has really proved to me how much I enjoy living without meat but I really appreciated this BBQ it was full of damn tasty steak and ribs and all sorts of sausages. It was also a lot of fun, we got to talking to a bunch of different people from all of the place. There was this one older couple, maybe in their 50s and they were great fun to talk to, very different. She was very Latin, full of life and laughing, he was from Minnesota and quiet and didn´t smile that much but I got to talking to him and he turned out to very interesting and nice, he worked as a border guard between the States and Mexico and had a lot of really interesting things to say about his job and had surprisingly good politics, very liberal, he had a lot of sad stories to tell as well. They were very cute they met when when he was marine stationed in Buenos Aries, they were about 21 at the time, yet were still very much in love.

Anyway on with the story on Monday Anna and I woak up pretty early to board a mini bus that took us out to the country side around Mendoza so we could tour the Bodegas or wineries. It was AWESOME. We got to the bike rental place, mounted our chosen rides (both of which turned out to be crap real ass breakers but none the less) and we were off. The first winery we hit was a bigger one and it had a museum. We had to wait around for about 30 mins for the next tour so we just checked the place out. It was a beautiful day the countryside was lovely. While looking around we found a bunch of wine in glasses on a table in one room so we helped ourselves although we found out later that wine had been for the people who were on the tour while we waited so we drank before and after our tour (which was free) lucky us. We also learned a bunch about the area and about the process of making wine. One thing we learned was that it is mostly Bolivians who come down as migrant workers to pick the grapes and they only make one peso for every huge basket that they pick, and they get paid through this weird system in which they get tokens for their baskets which then get converted into money later on. The next stop we biked to was not actually a winery at all but it was one of my favorite places we went. It was this really really beautiful little place where two families lived and worked. One of them made chocolates (we bought some) and the other made liquors (we bought some too). Liquors were all hand made and bottled - we got to try a couple for free really amazing stuff. Anna bought a bottle of Chocolate coconut liquor and one that was a combination of apple, Cinnamon, lemon and something else. We also tried the grapefruit and chocolate banana. They are all awesome and I mean that. I also bought this green olive spread they made. Really a fun stop. The third place was a much larger and higher end winery. We did a tasting up on this beautiful patio that looked over the vineyard. Under bright white umbrellas we sipped some of the best wine I have ever had. I ended up buying a 35 peso bottle of really great wine from there (about 10 dollars) and Anna and I left to eat our lunch under a big shade tree on the side of a country road. We proceeded to drink the entire bottle I had just bought ( of course some of the nicest wine I have ever bought we drank straight from the bottle and finished in one go) but we had no where to store it once opened so down in went. then we were off again, slightly tipsier than before to the next winery where we just looked around. Down the road again, which I have to say was very pretty and interesting. the road was lined with huge old trees and was really genuine. The area was not made up for tourists, people just lived there and the wineries just happened to be there too because of the soil. The last two stops were across the road from one another. One was an olive oil making company. I had never actually seen olives on trees ( trust me they do not taste good raw!) and the other was another really beautiful winery owned by this french couple. Here if we bought a bottle of wine (20 pesos - less than 7 dollars we each bought one) we got the wine, the tour and a tasting. We hung out there for a while, it was really lovely and we needed to sober up for the ride back. We made it back to the bike rental place with 15 mins to spare and were then driven back into town where I promptly fell asleep! It was a lot of fun, and seriously made me consider becoming a wine maker, seems like a good life!