The Wine Country

To me, St. Patrick’s Day should involve three quintessential ingredients: drinking early, drinking often, and drinking something green.  I think my St. Patty’s hit the nail right on the head…

I arrived in Mendoza on Friday morning, after a rather enjoyable bus ride over the Andes Mountains from Santiago, Chile.  I scored the last remaining bed in what my research said was the best hostel in Mendoza, Hostel Lao.  It wasn’t anything too special, just a pretty chill place, that was small so it was easy to make friends, free wine after 8pm, and a book exchange filled with gems (I found the second book in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series – I was reading the first book at the time, and the Steve Job’s book).

I quickly met a girl in my dorm, Allie from Australia, who wanted to hit up a bike tour of a few wineries the next day.  I had been on buses for about 19 hours with the sole purpose of hitting up a bike tour, I was solidly in.  My plan was to have a few drinks that night, on account of the wine tour the next day, and St. Patty’s the next night… but it’s funny how plans often deteriorate in Argentina….

After dinner things got started around the table outside (the one with the free wine).  The group that started small eventually grew to include half the hostel: 5 brits, 2 kiwis, a dutch couple, a french girl, and a yank (me).  When we had filled the table with empty beer bottles we decided to head out, it was just after midnight.

The night was pretty fun, but I won’t go into too much detail.  It was just one of those nights that we kept losing members of the group.  First two of the British girls disappeared into a bar, then one of the British guys took off.  Half of the group retired early (2am) when we decided to try and hit up a club, a plan that failed when me and the guy from New Zealand were charged the gringo entrance fee of 50 pesos, while everyone else got in for free.  We were annoyed and just got out of there, a smart decision considering the early start the next morning.

When I got back the hostel I wasn’t sure of the time, I just remember Allie waking up and asking me if I still wanted to go wine tasting (yeah – duh), and that she’d wake me up in 3 hours… christ.

The activities of Saturday began promptly following the developments of Friday night.  Awake before 8am, showered and caffeinated, I was ‘ready’ for the day.  We hit up a local bus to ride out of the city and into wine territory.

We went with the hostel recommended Baccus – Vineyard Biking and it was a great choice.  The owner Miguel, a very excited Argentinean, customized a wine tour for us based on our preferences and how far we wanted to bike.

The first winery was Cauas de Weinert, a fancy winery with a gated fence and buildings more than a hundred years old.  Our host gave us a full tour of the vineyard and a full explanation of the wine making process.  The highlights being the super massive barrels they use:

They also specialize in aged wines, we tried 4 wines, all the reds were before 2005, a merlot and a malbec, and both were incredibly smooth.  They even had a 1977 malbec, these bottle were the only ones left, and each bottle run over 700 dollars:

The next two vineyards were similar, Filosofos and Pulmary, in that they were both family owned, both small, and both grew all their own grapes.

Both also had very nice wines, the tours were ok, but being that it was our second and then third explanation of the wine making process, I felt like I should have been giving the tour.

Our fourth and last vineyard was the illustrious Alta Vista.  It was by far the nicest of all the places we saw and at 2.5 million bottles produced a year, it was also pumping out the most wine.

The last stop on the tour was not a vineyard at all, but rather a little local shop to taste chocolate and liqueurs, A La Anilrgus.  When we walked in not only was it obvious that I was feeling tipsy, but that the woman who ran the shop only spoke Spanish.  She first gave a brief introduction and tour, and then explained each item in her shop, again all in Spanish.

We then had a choice of one of the sweet liqueurs and one of the more alcoholic bottles.  For the first I tried one of the chocolate and fruit mixtures, and for the second the choice was easy as I was getting drunk and it was the only one that was green… absinthe.

Yes that absinthe, the one made from wormwood, is 75% alcohol (150 proof), and made Vango cut off his ear.  This was my first time trying it, but I’ve wanted to for so long.  Consensus, pretty f-ing strong and pretty terrible tasting, but it gets the job done, and I felt wasted after just my one shot (which I more drank than shot).

With the bikes returned and back on the bus, I was having a grand ol’ time, but as soon as we got back to the hostel, I just wanted a snooze.  I slept til it was good and dark outside.

That night was meant to be a rampage of the city, an all night booze fest, instead it turned into drinks around the table in the hostel once again, with the same familiar faces, everyone either feeling the effects of the previous nights or of that day.  We rolled out to a nice sushi dinner at midnight, and had a few nightcap drinks to wrap the evening up around half 2.  I was beat and wanted nothing more than to sleep, but I’d certainly like to think I accomplished something on St. Patty’s Day 2012.