Partying it Up in Wine Country!
Way back when I was touring the Salt Flats of Bolivia, there were a couple of Argentinian gals in my tour group who hailed from Mendoza, and it became a running joke that Mendoza was pretty much the perfect place on Planet Earth. Their exuberant chorus-like refrain of "Whatever you want, you can find in Mendoza!" drew giggles from the rest of us actually. Naturally enough, my expectations were quite...errr...HIGH upon my visit. But you know, to be perfectly frank, I just wasn't that blown away by the place. It is in many ways a typical urban environment full of traffic, shops, noise, the smell of urine, and pedestrians. On the plus side, it is relatively clean and quite green with numerous squares and avenues adorned with tall trees. And yet...ehhh.
However, I should make allowances for the fact that I am much more of a nature-loving gal and had just spent nearly a month in Patagonia, one of God's most awe-inspiring playgrounds (For any readers of the Agnostic/Atheist persuasion, simply replace the word "God" with "universe"). Plus, the city was pretty much obliterated with all its colonial buildings leveled by a massive earthquake in 1861 thus forcing it to rebuild (reinvent?) itself from scratch.
So what then IS special about Mendoza other than the incredibly overwhelming pride its citizens seem to have for it?! Well how about WINE!! And what about the proximity of the Andes, particularly the highest mountain in the world, Aconcagua (outside of the Himalayas that is), which is 6,962 meters tall, or nearly 23,000 feet for all you Americans out there unfamiliar with the metric system.
As to its first point of merit, the city has indeed built up a reputable wine-producing industry over a relatively short period of time. I found out all about the history of Mendoza's vineyards while on an upscale wine tour with the "Trout & Wine" agency. Apparently, Mendoza has been a center of wine (and olive oil) production since the 19th century, but for the majority of this time, the vineyards were concerned with quanity over quality, i.e. table wine. Furthermore, the wine produced in those days wasn't even bottled in Mendoza, but rather shipped in huge barrels by train to either Valparaiso, Chile, or Buenos Aires for bottling. This practice was eventually halted by the Argentinian government in order to stop oh-so-clever-and-opportunistic locals from pilfering a bit of wine here and there while it was being transported. These locals would apparently try to hide their stealing by adding water to the barrels - this diluting process unfortunately reduced the quality of the wine even further.
The Mendoza Valley wine industry suffered through a period of extremely hard times in the 1970's and early 80's, which my Trout & Wine guide referred to as "The Beer Crisis". Beer essentially became the alcoholic beverage of choice for many Argentinians causing wine consumption to drop sharply. As a result, lots of Mendoza wineries went bankrupt. Thankfully, the industry managed to turn things around by changing the focus of their production from table wine to those of a finer quality. Fast forward 30 years and Mendoza has become one of the 9 Great Wine Capitals of the World (the others being Bilboa/Rioja in Spain, Bordeaux in France, San Francisco/Napa Valley in California, Christchurch in New Zealand, Cape Town in South Africa, Firenze in Italy, Mainz in Germany, and finally Porto in Portugal) and produces more wine than any other area in Latin America (Take that, Chile!). Talk about a success story, eh?! But let me tell you a little somethin' somethin' about my very own Mendoza wine experience...
As I said, I booked a tour with the Trout & Wine agency ($165), and it was considerably more expensive than most other wine tours available, but I really wanted to abandon my backpacker persona for a little while and visit some finer, boutique vineyards. Plus the tour included an absolutely DELICIOUS vegetarian meal prepared just pour moi! (Seriously, my lunch there was by far the best lip-smacking meal I have had in the past 4 months and maybe even longer!) There were 3 other couples on my tour: an American expat couple from Detroit who work for General Motors in Brazil, a sweet & affectionate couple from Mexico City, and finally a mix & match couple consisting of a 50-something London fellow named "John" who is involved in the music business but refused to disclose the specifics of his work (Hmmmm, I love a good mystery and wonder just who/what he knows from the biz!!) and his tattooed much younger Argentinian girlfriend.
On the tour we visited 4 wineries (in this order): Clos de Chacres, Viña Cobos (where I purchased a tasty bottle of Merlot), Club Tapiz (where we had our scrumptious lunch), and Alta Vista. Each winery was quite different, from the charming and quite small vineyard of Clos de Chacres to the uber-modern Alta Vista. But they all had one thing in common...great-tasting wine!
I learned a couple of things about the varieties of grapes grown in Mendoza while on the tour. The Malbec grape, for example, was known in France as "the bad grape" due to the fact that it didn't grow particularly well there. However, in the Mendoza region, this grape flourished and is now one of the major varieties of grapes grown in the area. Another grape I learned about was the Torrentes; its nickname is "the liar's grape" because it has a decidedly sweet smell but when one tastes this white wine, it is actually quite dry.
Surprisingly, I managed not to get drunk during the day but I did feel understandably tipsy by the tour's conclusion. The only reason, I must confess, I managed to remember so many details about the tour was down to the simple fact that I actually took copious notes!! Does that make me sound like a somewhat pathetic geek or wanna-be journalist? Don't answer that!
I have rambled on and on about wine and have said nothing yet about my "High Andes" tour! Well, I won't bore you with too many details. The highlight was, naturally, a one hour stop in the Aconcagua Provincial Park where we had the chance to do a short hike to numerous viewpoints of the mountain. We were blessed with predominantly clear skies through much of the day so I managed to get some decent shots of the snow-capped peaks including Aconcagua itself. Our guide said that we were quite fortunate as those who'd been on the tour the previous day couldn't see Aconcagua at all due to the clouds. My unbelievable luck with the weather continues...
One final thing I'd like to mention from this tour was something our High Andes guide told us about the Andean condor. She informed us that these condors, which happen to be the largest land bird and have one of the longest life spans, mate for life. But...and this is a major BUT...she also said that if the female condor dies first, the male will subsequently commit suicide by flying as high as it can and then plunging down headfirst until it crashes into the ground. However, the female does no such thing and simply finds herself a new mate. Interesting “Animal Planet” factoid indeed...but I failed to find anything on the Internet which confirms this. If true, it is yet another example of a female animal species being more practically minded than their male counterparts. So why is it then that females of the homosapien sort have such a reputation for emotional imbalance and romantic sentimentality?! What gives!
Next up on my grand South American Tour...drum roll please...SALTA!
Comments
Post a Comment