Mar 11 Mendoza

Much restored after a good night sleep, we arranged a hire car and planned our Mendoza wine route. Steve had very kindly offered to be our teetotal driver for these couple of days as long as a beer was provided in the evening !

We are staying in Luyan de Cuyo an area about 30 minutes from Mendoza city which has many small local wineries (a lot of the major wineries here that export large volumes are French and Spanish owned), so we started off within walking distance of our hotel in a little bodega called Pulmary.

It was abandoned in the early 1920’s when Argentinian wine consumption plummeted as drinking trends moved to soft drinks and less alcohol. The family bought it 12 years ago and restored it and 2012 was their first year available and ready for the market.

Let me In !!

This time of year is a busy one as they are harvesting and fermenting, so the small winery was in full production mode when we arrived, so it was fun to see the whole thing live.

Bottling & Barrelling in Process

Ageing in oak in the callar

Sampling from the barrel

Mandy and Paul bought one of the last few bottles of a sparkling red (a mere 16% alcohol) with a great Marilyn Monroe designer label which the winemaker signed for them. Party party !!

From there we went on to Clos de Chacras, another Argentinian wine maker. The original winery was set up by one of the original settlers here but again went out of production in the early 1920’s. His granddaughter then bought the winery back about 20 years ago and started again replanting the vines and producing wine.

In the main cellar, they had the chair used by the original winemaker along with a book of the original yields and sales from the original winery from the late 1800’s.

Again the winery was in full production and we watched them loading the grapes into the pressing machine. The place was full of bees, attracted by the sweetness of the picked Malbec grapes.

First pressing of malbec grapes

 We had a tasting and they had some really lovely Malbec and Cabernet Franc, both silver medal winners. They had a limited edition cellar door only Malbec, so Janette had to add that one to her collection !

Malbec grapes ready for picking

By this time Steve was beginning to feel decidely left out with only water & dry crackers !

From there, we headed over to Maipo, one of the main production areas in Chile. The difference was marked, large vine areas and much bigger production units. We headed into Maipo town for coffee and after a wander around decided to head to the wine museum which Paul had found on the map. After several back and forwards round the one way system we found the museum only to realise it was 7pm and of course it was closed !!  That’s a day wine tasting for you !!

Back in Luyan de Cuyo we honoured our promise by finding Steve a beer bar in the middle of wine land and so ended a happy Malbec day !

Beer At Last !