Because of my experience the previous night – with no dinner and a lot of wine at The Vines – I missed my 9:30am tasting appointment.
But, once I had breakfast and some aspirin and had a chance to shower and regroup, I jumped in my rental car and headed into Lujan de Cuyo, which is the primary wine-producing region within Mendoza. Mendoza is reputed to have more than 1000 wineries, with many of them in Lujan including the most well-regarded, premium wineries.
Once again, the maps and directions to get out of Mendoza city into Lujan were loose, at best. Google maps directions simply said things like, “Take the exit. Turn Left. Turn right.” What exit? A left on which street? Vague.
I pulled off the highway several times to ask directions, which was entertaining since I speak no Spanish. However, through the kindness of these strangers, I pieced together their hand gestures and caught a few of their words and figured out where I needed to go to get to my first tasting appointment. So after all that, I show up at the winery and they’ve lost my reservation.
This point in the story prompts an interesting observation about Argentineans. For the most part, they don’t give a rat’s butt about customer service. They could care less if they lost your luggage or your reservation. In fact, I’ve been in a couple of situations where, despite my patience and attempts at being culturally sensitive, the person has seemed to actually kind of enjoy being rude. Once, I even calmly asked to talk to a woman’s supervisor because she said she had no power to resolve the situation, and she simply replied, “No!” and then hung up on me. This was a representative from one of Argentina’s major airlines. Can you imagine that in the USA? Yeah, no.
In this case, the security guard at the front gate of the winery put me on the line with an impassive woman who basically, in no uncertain terms told me they had no reservation for me and could do nothing for me. No apologies, no offer of a free tasting, nothing.
So after hitting a brick wall in getting anywhere with this winery, I headed down the road to another winery – one that I had an appointment at the next day – to see if they could fit me in today instead to their next tour and tasting. As if to make up for the lack of care with the first winery, the woman was quite nice and fit me in to the 12:30 Spanish speaking tour and tasting. This should be interesting.
The winery was Terrazas, and it was absolutely gorgeous. The grounds were meticulously landscaped and maintained, but somehow it still looked so casual and effortless. The buildings were all beautiful, even the manufacturing and truck loading building. Deep green lawns rolled over the property, displaying draped day beds, white andirondak chairs, and tables for holding your glass of wine. Tall slender trees with white bark and bright emerald leaves swayed in the gentle mountain wind. Beyond the brick wall were the vineyards. Beyond those were the horizon and blue mountains. And beyond those, snow-capped peaks stretching into the vibrant blue sky. The sunlight seemed silver, reflective. It was a beautiful moment that will stop time and prompt me, unconsciously, to let out a soft exhale each time I remember it.
After having a bit of time to appreciate all this, I joined the small group of people who came for the tour of the facilities and have the tasting. As I mentioned, the tour was in Spanish, so I wasn’t expecting to follow anything but simply have the opportunity to see the winery in action and have my tasting. But what happened was that I realized I could actually understand the tour guide. Not literally every word, but a strong grok of what she was saying. It was a strange sensation, like when you look at those pictures that seem like just a jumble of colors, then you relax your mind, your eyes, and soon an image begins to appear, and then the image pops out at you, showing you it was there all along. That’s what it was like. The meaning of what she was saying seemed to emerge from the jumble of strange sounds. It was a very good moment.
The tasting occurred in a cool underground room and was well balanced and delicious. In certain wines, you can taste the sun, the soil, and the water the grapes were grown in; you can taste the care that someone put into making it; you can taste time and thought and effort; you can taste the life of the wine. These wines were that. Wine is science, magic, and art and it can also be an emotional experience, like what I experienced at Terrazas. This is the beauty of wine.
The next winery I visited was Luigi Bosca. The winery tour wasn’t anything special nor were the facilities. The tasting consisted of a couple of their standard wines – the Finca La Linda brand – which were nice but not notable, and one of their reservas, which ended up being one of the better Malbec’s I’ve tasted in Mendoza. It had some nice cedar and smoke and fruit and a beautiful, long and leisurely finish.
In Mendoza, my main focus was on tasting wine, and I feel like I succeeded. So much so that I actually had to take the next day off of tasting because my palate felt pretty blown out, preventing me from being able to taste the subtleties of the wine. I lounged around the hostel in the sun, reading, napping, cooking a lovely lunch and dinner and heading to bed relatively early. It was a good day.
The next day, Sunday, was similar since everything in Argentina closes down for the day. However, I took a walk around town because it was actually World Malbec day, so I thought that there had to be some wine shops or tasting rooms open to commemorate. But nothing! I think it’s hilarious that likely Mendoza/Argentina created World Malbec day to stimulate their wine business, but all the businesses were actually closed on that day. That’s so perfectly Argentina.
And that brings m to Monday, when I packed up, said goodbye to the friends I made at my hostel (special thanks to Anna, Shane, and Tinto!) and headed to the airport to catch my flight back to Cordoba.
I’m taking a circuitous route to my next destination, Buenos Aires, via Cordoba and Tucuman, but I’ll arrive in B.A. Wednesday, 19 April to start the last leg of my Argentina trip before flying to Peru, the last leg of my entire South America trip. I’ve heard countless stories about how great B.A. I so I’m excited to get thee and begin exploring one of the most sophisticated metropolises of South America. Onward!
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