Wandering back from the bus depot where I sorted a pimping Carma bus up to Salta, I'm accosted by a gypsy. It's funny, there are a few of them and it seems Gypo fashion spans international boundaries. Unwashed plaited hair, clashing outfits of floral patterns, missing teeth, dirty babies pith pierced ears in mini gypsy outfits. I try to shake the toothless fella before he gets his spiel flowing, but he asks all the right questions to stop an Englishman, even in Spanish. "Good afternoon. Where are you from? Don't worry, no money no money. What is your name..." Bollocks he's holding my handshake. Gripped.
Before I know it he's crossed my palms with lucky rosemary (evidently short on heather here) and made me keep it for luck. I try to explain that lady luck is already on my case and that I am more than willing to return the herbs he then steps up close and straight asks for cash. "Did you not say no money? ... Oh it's not for you, of course". I try to leave and he's as hard to shake as I imagined he would be, but fortunately my hostel was ten steps away, and I slip in before he can cast a hex.
Safely inside it seems Sandra has arrived from Bariloche and her bus journey was less than fantastic. A decent bus, but stopping in every tiny pueblo all night long & with a skanky broken bog. The hand-written notice apparently read: "Use only in extreme emergency, to avoid colera".
There are cycling tours in Mendoza where you hire a bike and cycle to the furthest vineyard you can be bothered, sample as many different bodegas on the route back & drop the bike in if you make it back alive. Sounds borderline illegal, promoting being in charge of a vehicle under the influence. I put that on tomorrow's to do list. Instead, today we're all booked on an arvo wine tour, visiting two bodegas outside Mendoza, in the Maipu area.
Who'd name a place Maipu? They're begging for crap jokes. "I think I swallowed my padlock key, once I've been to the loo can you help me look for the key in Maipu?" or more simply "I've shat me pants. Wanna see Maipu?" I came up with more, but I'll spare you Maipu puns.
Anyhoos, on the tourbus with a friendly, informative and (most importantly) bilingual guide we learn all sorts of facts. Mendoza, with it's ideal climate, altitude and soil, produces 70% of Argey wine. 300 sunny days And 300mm of rainfall per year ease out the natural sugars from the small wine grapes. The only natural hindrance is the grapefruit sized hail in January, a month before harvest. Over a thousand wineries span the Greater Mendoza area, of which 350 are internationally famous (including Norton, San Filipe, Zuccardi etc, available in the UK).
1st stop: Baudron. A twenty year old uninterested girl in a "Every girl wants to be a princess" t-shirt gives us the tour in fast forward. The smell hanging inside reminded me of my father's cellar where he brewed wine from anything he could find into wine; elderflower bushes by the side of the road, rose petals, red currants, etc. From my memory, Don John's vino wasn't a massive success.
Perhaps it's the new world thing but this winery had no history, no soul. It was a factory, pumping grapes in at one end and bottles of plonk out the other. Tourists were treated similarly. A half-hearted spin round and we're tasting a two varieties and given the hard sell to buy a spendy vintage. I felt like Miles from 'Sideways' when he got the rage in a touristy vineyard. They need a graphic designer here too; fluorescent pink & blue labels with rainbow text? Doesn't quite spell class, daaarling. Though for the places aesthetic falls, the sweet Malbec (dulche) desert red was rather interesting.
2nd stop: Don Arturo, which by way of comparison was a small 6th generation family-run gig, naturally tending the grapes, on site, without artificial assistance and putting what felt like a lot more love into each bottle. One of the daughters informed us as she leisurely showed us round, that these wines are only available to buy at the bodega and via a limited import to the states. The quality is higher than saleable for the local market. We strolled through the vineyard and tasted Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah grapes off the vines. One interesting thing was how quickly an unoaked wine can be produced. It's literally: squeeze the grapes, add the yeast, when that's eaten up the natural sugar, you have wine. The oaking in fired French oak barrels for 24 months adds the vanilla roble finish, nice in my opinion on reds, but grim on whites.
Anyways, we got to try the young unoaked Malbec, Cab Sauv & Syrah and they were all most quaffable. The Malbec particularly: rich, thick and leggy (...the way I like my women). The Cab Sauv, with full on jammy overtones and deep black forest gateaux finish. The Syrah, packing a tannin kick and a nutty, earthy red berry body. Yep they definitely all tasted of red wine.
I love the wax lyrical wine bullshit.
But this winery was real proud of it's wine and that could be tasted, so I bought the best bottle available. A vintage roble Malbec from the year their daughter married. 80 pesos a pop, or the equivalent of 4 nights hostel accommodation. One for the wine cellar back home (read: IKEA rack precariously balanced on the microwave). In pounds it only amounts to £13, but it'd be worth a small fortune back home. Although it's boxed up, there's a reasonably high chance that before I get it home, I may end up doing an expensive tie-dye job on my clothes.
That night the five of us in our hostel who were on the tour (Nicole Sandra, a Kiwi & yank girl and an amusingly patriotic American "I LOVE my country!") drank our way through the cheaper bottles of Mendozan reds (and a 2 peso Malbec we didn't drink the night before, passable at the end of 4 decent bottles). We head out for steaky, winey dinner. The wine loosened our tongues and hearts. One thing led to another, piscos entered the equation, out went my memory, and I rolled in at 630am. Apparently I had a nice sleep in a bar somewhere.
It took me till 3pm the next day to get my tet back up and firing on all cylinders. At this point Sandra & I taxi to Chandon, the bubbly bodega, and took a very classy champagne tour. Before arriving our taxi driver, a scaled down version of the The Fellowship of the Ring Ogre with a 5 o'clock shadow, took us on an interesting tour of the petrol stations of Mendoza. Here when you fill up with petrol you're not allowed to be in the car, in case it blows up. Leaning on the car, however, is ok. You got to love the rules here.
Sadly the hire-a-bike-and-get-pissed trip never really materialised. But why ride a bike when you can have an ogre chauffeur you?
Barns
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