Where's the Wine?

After the marathon wine tastings of the last three days, it was a shock - yes, a SHOCK - to have to wait until lunch for our first glass of wine. Christian The Van Man came to pick us up this morning for our 11:45 flight to Mendoza, the wine capital of Argentina. Christian was great-he stayed with us all the way to security to make sure we had a smooth departure, and we did.

 

Fernando, our new driver, met us at the Mendoza airport. He gave us an overview of the region, explaining that the major industries are olive oil and wine. Mendoza City has about 100,000 people and Greater Mendoza almost a million. The city, laid out by a Frenchman who created broad avenues with many large greenways and parks, is easy to get around.

We had lunch at a parrilla near our hotel, enjoying a bottle of Latitud 33 Malbec from Bodegas Chandon with our meal. The wine was the perfect welcome to Argentina-rich, creamy, but not overwhelming.

 

We toured Mendoza City with a lovely young woman named Aida and a driver named Hugo. We walked part of the time and rode with Hugo when the distances we needed to cover were too great. We visited the old town and walked up to the top of San Martin Hill. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and families filled the park. Around the statue commemorating freedom of Argentine was a pictorial view of the story of the revolution and the fight of the Andes soldiers. From the hill, we viewed the foothills of the Andes and the various areas that make up Mendoza- from the park spanning miles and miles, to the public housing and the upscale neighborhoods to the soccer field built for the World Cup in 1978 when Argentina won.

Before dinner Kitty and Sarah brought down a bottle of Casas del Bosque Sauvignon Blanc for a cocktail in the pool area. Then we walked over to the Park Hyatt's Bistro M for dinner.  We expected an amazing Argentinean dinner, and were not disappointed. The baby goat, pureed pumpkin, whipped potatoes and swiss chard with mushrooms were all amazing. It was a lovely dinner. And the wines: all Malbec. Our first two bottles were Pulenta, with its dense dark fruit lushness.  The wine list had two and a half pages of Malbecs. We picked Altos Los Hormigas for our next course.  And came back to the hotel to sip a little Terrazzas. Delicious! Maybe we got a late start on wine consumption, but we made up for lost time.