The Wine Country!

This will be a short one…

WE LOVED MENDOZA.  The end.

But really, Mendoza was awesome!  A short 12 hour night bus ride from Buenos Aires to Mendoza (this was a luxury bus with seats reclining 180 degrees) and we were ready to drink wine!  Mendoza is known as the wine country of Argentina (as most would say, the Napa Valley of Argentina).   We arrived to Mendoza on Friday, December 26th and stayed until December 29th, 2014.

Mendoza (although a pretty big city), feels tiny when compared to Buenos Aires (and as we learned, we like it that way).  Here, the nature is plentiful with the snow capped mountains surrounding the city. It is a walking city, but if you want to get to the wineries (which you do), you will either need to get a car (not recommended as the wineries are hard to find) or get a tour guide (which is what we did).

Thanks to our friends Natalie and Paulie (who now reside in Ireland), we were introduced to a friend of theirs (Marcelo) who gave us a private tour of a few wineries.  Tip: just like in Buenos Aires, you have to pay all in cash if you want to get the most out of your pesos (hotels, tours, food, etc.).

We spent two days just hanging around downtown Mendoza and another day in the valley, wine tasting.  Here is some feedback/recommendations and pictures:

FOOD:

• Brod Panaderia:  a great spot for a breakfast/lunch.  The owner is super nice and they have a great yard with super fast wifi!

• Maria Antonieta: awesome dinner (so-so breakfast).  Kieran and I may be on their wall of shame as we both almost fell off our chairs in a drunken/tired moment.

• Cavas de Cano:  this was a spot that Marcelo booked for us on the day of wine tasting. What a gem!  Very private and unique and we were glad to have Marcelo join us for lunch as there was enough food for 27 people!

After lunch, Kieran was pretty brutally beaten by Marcelo in a game of foosball.

WINERIES:

We only went to two wineries as we are not HUGE drinkers and after the lunch that we had at Cavas De Cano, we could only drink so much!

• Achaval Ferrer: beautiful setting and very knowledgeable tasting guides. Argentinian wine is very well known for the Malbec (this winery was all about their flavorful red wines).

• Dominio del Plata: also a very pretty setting and is owned by the first female wine maker in Mendoza.

RANDOM: When we got to Mendoza, I learned that a good friend of ours, Emi, got engaged on Christmas day and since she LOVES coca-cola and since Mendoza also seems to LOVE coca-cola, Kieran took the following shot for her (lots of jumping attempts were made):

Next stop, Santiago, Chile as we are out of Argentinian pesos!