Wine tour in Mendoza

I set my alarm for 8.30am and woke up tired. Breakfast was in a light main room, the usual suspects of dry bread, coffee, sugary juice and cakes. I had an apple for something fresh.
The tour started at 10.20am but the guy at reception said ‘it might not actually start then.’ Sure enough, we hit the road around 11am after picking up a full van load of people. From my hostel, a really nice English couple were joining, plus a Korean solo girl, two really tall tanned guys from the Netherlands, a quiet English girl from Liverpool, the Australian from the border, and a 65-year-old man who had travelled the world for 3 months on his boat. It was currently parked in Brazil, where he landed over the Atlantic from Africa.

We went to the first winery by van. It was called Bodega Lopez and was more of a traditional old-school winery. They had these absolutely enormous wine casks with a tiny door someone had to twist
themselves inside to clean the wine crystals out. They had used the casks for over a hundred years. We tasted their really nice late harvest wine (it was like drinking peach juice), and their premium range. I bought a mini bottle of the premium one. Then it was on the bikes rented from ‘Mr Hugo’. I was on an old BMX with only one brake and no gears. We biked down the main highway, it wasn’t relaxing with tonnes of intersections and huge trucks rumbling past. A Korean girl, Cecelia got left behind and the guide had to go back to find her.

We went to a restaurant where we sat in the garden outside. I was next to the Netherlands boys and Cecelia. Although they were a bit laddish, riding without hands and jumping off the sidewalk on their bikes, one of them had biked alongside Cecelia to make sure she was alright at the back. We drank a lot of red wine and I had ravioli with tomato bolognese sauce. Lunch lasted way to long and I was almost 3.30pm by the time we went to the Olive Oil factory. A softy spoken man showed us the process of cold pressing olives to make oil and then we got to taste almost 7 different types. Everyone looked tired.

Then we biked on a slightly nicer road to the next winery called Vista Andes. It was a super modern building that could’ve been a Bond villain’s house. The tour was very short and not that good, but the girl was really attractive who took it, so all the boys enjoyed it. We drank our tiny tasting glasses on the deck.

They drove us back to the restaurant for a free ice cream (I had dulce de leche), then we went to the last winery for just a tasting. The wines were really good there, we had a sparkling and a Cabernet. I couldn’t stop laughing because the Aussie checked the colour of the Sparkling, sniffed it, and then shot the whole glass in one gulp. The tour finished at a Bier Garden that only had two beers on offer – a roja or rubia. The pale ale ran out, so everyone had to drink the red beer.

After the tour, the Dutch boys and English people decided to go out for more drinks. I dropped my wine off at the hostel then went out with Hattie and Max to meet the others at an Irish pub weirdly called Thomas Brown. We had a round of beer there (the others probably had three), and then went for dinner at a fancy place called La Lucia. I had a steak and Malbec. Another guy from Buenos Aires had joined us and he did all the ordering for us. We all thought he was older but he was only 30! I think the Dutch boys had wanted to party, but after being unable to finish the ‘mixed grill for two’ which contained at least 20 cuts of steak and nothing else they were exhausted. The girl from Liverpool, Debra was really gutted the Olive Oil man had asked for my number because she loved olive oil and was definitely on the prowl. I got home around 1am.