Buenos Aires
and Mendoza
January 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
Monday, Jan 13: Buenos Aires Arrival
Arrival
Other than losing my card in the ATM, our arrival went well. I had arranged a transfer through BK Wine Tours and that worked well, being delivered to our hotel, the Recoleta Grand Hotel, in a slightly older part of Buenos Aires. I had noticed that several things, like Google Maps, were showing the hotel closed for renovations, so I was not surprised to see construction work still in progress. The route to/from our room was a bit unusual and circuitous, passing through the dining room, and a result of the construction. At one point, as we were supposed to meet the group in the lobby, the “Fire Alarm” went off, shutting down the elevators and the closest stairs (we were on the 5th floor) had “do not cross” tape across them. I had done a little “investigation” previously so we just went around a minor blockade and into the construction area, then down an open set of stairs there. As expected, the fire alarm was false, probably caused by the construction.
Entrance and lobby of our hotel
Othar than the construction aspect, the hotel was nice and the staff very friendly and helpful. They gladly suggested a money exchange close-by where I could change some US dollars for Argentine Pesos and a store where I could get an electrical outlet adapter. After unsuccessfully trying to reach our Credit Union, successfully getting the Pesos, and buying a outlet adapter, we relaxed until dinner time when we were to meet our tour group for dinner.
At the appointed meeting time, we met the rest of our group and our tour leader Per, in the lobby and, with Per leading the way, walked to the restaurant for dinner. On the way, we passed the Russian Embassy and Per pointed out what is the city’s largest “palace” still used as a private residence, the Residencia Maguire.
Behind the fence and trees is the Residencia Maguire.
Another five minutes’ walk brought us to the “Restaurant Fervor”, a very nice, possibly even “swanky” restaurant, where we were led to a large table on the upper floor balcony.
Finding seats at the Restaurant Fervor table
In the photo above you will notice that we have small menus to choose our dishes: for the main course there were choices of fish, chicken, several cuts of beef or vegetarian. Our hosts said “Forget those choices, here in Argentina, you have to get the beef.” So, we did. We had the usual appetizer and/or salad, and then came the beef… a rather large hunk of beef (New York Strip, in my case): more than many people could reasonably eat. It was properly cooked and tasty and the wine (good wine) flowed throughout the meal. As we were to discover, this meal set the precedent for the meals to follow in Argentina. After a good and relaxed meal, we headed back to the hotel to try to get a good night’s sleep to make up for the sleep we had missed on the flight.
Tuesday, Jan 14: Buenos Aires City Tour & Tango
Today, the main thing on the agenda was a “City Tour” of Buenos Aires, including lunch, followed in the evening by a visit to a restaurant that featured a “Tango Show”. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and loaded the bus about 8:30 to start the tour. A local guide joined us at this point and stayed with us for the full day to tell us more about Buenos Aires.
Our first stop was just a short bus ride from the hotel, still in the Recoleta section of the city. This stop was our first hint of a major feature of Buenos Aires: there are a lot of parks and abundant green space in the city. We got out of the bus and were on the edge of a very large park with multiple sections and various museums, churches, and other points of interest.
The Basilica Nuestra Senora del Pilar was across one walkway of the park.
The basilica above was striking enough with its brilliant white exterior against the deep greens of the park, but our real target lay just behind the church, the Recoleta Cemetery. We entered the cemetery and it was like a major city of wall-to-wall mausoleums, crypts, and memorials. To be buried in this cemetery, one had to be very well known, or very rich.
One of the main “streets” within the cemetery
The section in the photo above is just a very small part of the cemetery: there were thousands of various kinds of burial sites. You can probably guess one of the more famous people to be buried here, based on the sign above.
The tomb of Evita (Duarte) Peron
It is interesting to note that, on her tomb, the “Peron” name does not appear, rather her maiden name Duarte is used. This is because her husband, Juan Peron, the president of Argentina, was not nearly as universally liked as Evita and some people feared that having the Peron name on the tomb would invite destructive vandalism. This was the first of several things on our tour that pointed out just how popular and loved Evita still is, more than 70 years after her death, by the people of Argentina. Our guide pointed out that today, only one other person in Argentina approaches the popularity of Evita and we’ll find our who that is in a few minutes.
We loaded back into the bus and headed to our next point of interest. But, along the way, we passed more of the parks and green space I mentioned. There is one very large park that sort of meanders along the waterfront. It reminded me a bit of Central Park in New York City, although the boundaries of this park are very irregular and curving. It also contained several statues and memorials, some with rather long names, such as the “Monument to the Magna Carta and the Four Regions”.
The shorter name is “Monumento de los Espanoles”
In addition to the monuments, there were also several “artistic structures”, some of which were more successful than others.
Our next stop would be at the Plaza de Mayo, around which are several important government buildings and functions. Probably the best known (and most easily recognized) is the “Pink House”.
The “President’s Palace”, also known as the “Pink House”
This is the building where the president does his normal work but he does not live there, so it is not exactly the equivalent to the US’s White House. Going back to Evita’s popularity….. She gave her “Don’t cry for me” speech from the Pink House, specifically from the balcony in front of the three windows with the striped drapes. There were quite a few police and military guards in the area, including one mostly ceremonial squad, as seen in this short video of the Royal Guard. We walked the length of the Plaza and visited the Metropolitan Church of Buenos Aires, which really looked more like a government building from the outside. From the inside though, it was definitely a church.
The interior of the “Cathedral Metropolitana de Buenos Aires”
There were multiple religious statues and paintings along the sides of the cathedral, along with some more armed guards as well as more ceremonial guards. After visiting the cathedral, we found the bus and climbed back in for a ride to a somewhat less serious area, although I’m sure some Argentinians might disagree with that.
The La Boca neighborhood is home to the Boca Juniors, possibly the most famous of the Argentine futbol (soccer) clubs (teams). The home pitch is in the neighborhood and the team colors are everywhere. There is a lot of tourist shopping and sidewalk vendors selling shirts, artwork, and all kinds of food.
Artists were showing their wares along this walkway.
Although this was a Tuesday, there were many people wandering the streets and checking the stores. We found out later that there were three cruise ships in port and the cruise port area is only a short distance from La Boca. The La Boca community grew up alongside the old port and some people say the residents took to using leftover paint from painting the ships and used it on their homes and stores, resulting in a very colorful appearance.
Very colorful, and in the Boca Juniors Club colors. (Yes, those are mannequins.)
By the time we looked around La Boca for a while, it was a little after noon and time to head for lunch. The bus took us to the Cabañas Las Lilas restaurant in the totally renovated “New Harbor” area of Puerto Madero. All the buildings along the harbor area were new and there were many nice restaurants, clubs, and shops. For this lunch, there was a predetermined, set menu and you can probably guess what it featured: a big slab of beef, accompanied by some very nice wine.
The steaks were good so the plates are empty.
After finishing lunch we had about 30 minutes before time to meet and get back on the bus, so Susan and I took a little walk along the harbor waterfront. There were some small private boats and one large sailboat that is essentially a floating museum. The ARA Presidente Sarmiento was initially built as a training ship for the Argentina Navy and is now maintained in its original 1898 configuration and appearance.
The ARA Presidente Sarmiento floating in the harbor, but note the large modern buildings in the distance.
We soon piled back into the bus and took a somewhat round-a-bout, sight-seeing route back to the hotel. At one point we passed two buildings somewhat close together which were celebrating the two current heroes of Buenos Aires.
Evita and Messi
We’ve already talked about Evita, but for those who don’t know, Lionel Messi is the current soccer world’s leading star: he even had a starring role in one of this year’s Super Bowl commercials. Messi is the Argentine National soccer team’s all-time leading goal scorer and in Argentina, that puts him right up there with Evita in importance. After the excitement of seeing larger than life Evita and Messi, we had to get back to the hotel and rest a while.
Tonight, we were going to dinner and a Tango “demonstration”. I put demonstration in quotes because it was truly a show on a stage and not anything like normal people would dance the Tango, but it was entertaining.
Site of restaurant and Tango Show
But first, we had dinner, featuring, of course, a hunk of beef. It was probably a step or two above the typical “dinner with a show” meal, but certainly not as good as the other meals we had already enjoyed or the ones that would come. After the dishes were cleared, it was time for the show. In addition to the dances, there were some “instrumentals” by the small band and several vocals, all in the tango style of music. The theme of the show was to trace the source and history of the Tango as it evolved over several centuries but, in my simplistic view, I think the “show” aspects tended to overshadow the “tango” aspects and some of the spirit of the dance was lost. See what you think: here is a compression of several of the different styles of tango, all in a 2-and-a-half-minute video of the history of the tango. Or, the photo below represents the current style of the Tango.
Current Tango style. Or is it??
After the show, we headed back to the hotel with instructions for a slightly early departure in the morning.
Wednesday, Jan 15: Flight to Mendoza and Bodega Casarena
Today we fly to the city and Providence of Mendoza, about 620 miles west of Buenos Aires. Since this is a domestic flight, staying within Argentina, we can use the much more convenient domestic airport close to the harbor where we were the previous day, and much closer and easier to navigate than the large international airport. It was only about 15 minutes via bus to the airport, but we then had to walk (with our luggage) close to half a mile to the proper ticket counter. There was some confusion concerning luggage limitations for some of our group, but we soon got that taken care of, went through security, and found our departure gate with probably 2 hours to wait to boarding time.
The terminal at the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery: the “downtown” domestic airport
We spent the time reading and strolling through a couple of shops along the concourse. A little before time to board, the area around our gate quickly got rather busy, as the local people apparently knew how the boarding process worked here, but we did not. Although there had been no announcements for our flight, people started to board, so we decided that it must be time to get in line. We had reserved seats, so there was no danger of not getting a seat, but it did seem a bit of a “free-for-all”. It was one-class type seating and I think the plane ended up being very full. The plane pulled out on time and after taking off, made a bit of a circle back almost over Buenos Aires so I had to get a couple of aerial shots.
Aerial of much of Buenos Aires with the airport along the waterfront.
In the photo above, it is hard to see the individual buildings to get an idea of how many large/tall buildings there are, so I enlarged a small part of another photo to give a better idea. The area of the photo below is actually just off to the left of the photo above.
A few of the large buildings and even a couple of cruise ships
Buildings and development like this covered much of the large area of Buenos Aires: that is one large city! We soon left Buenos Aires behind and settled in for our two hour flight to Mendoza. When we did approach Mendoza, the scenery was a little different.
Slightly rolling terrain with the Andes mountains in the distance
We got off the plane, claimed our luggage, met our local guide, and boarded a small bus for much of our local transportation. Our luggage would be taken directly to our hotel, but we had a more important appointment: lunch and wine tasting at Bodega Casarena, our first winery visit on the trip.
A small part of the Casarena vineyards
While part of the façade of the winery was maintained from the original century old bodega, most of the winery was built in 2007 and is very modern. We were soon seated in their restaurant and enjoyed a very hearty beef lunch, accompanied by several of their wines. Susan and I are fans of Cabernet Franc so we were glad to see that Casarena features it and we enjoyed some at lunch.
The Casarena Semillon
Some of the other very nice wines included a Chardonnay (not too oaky), a Semillon (best known for use in French Sauternes or in blends, but a nice single varietal here), and the normal Cab Sauv. and Malbec.
The table, empty plates, and empty wine bottles
The winemaker came out and talked to us for a while and was very friendly and willing to discuss his wine making strategies. We bought a couple of bottles of the Cab Franc and a bottle of their Malbec, which we ended up enjoying over the rest of the trip. After lunch we got a full tour of the winery facilities, including the fermentation area and barrel room where some rather unusual aging containers were being used.
The normal stainless steel fermentation tanks, and some unusual egg-shaped tanks in the far room
We saw aging casks somewhat like these egg-shaped concrete casks in several other wineries, but I think these were the largest ones. After a nice tour we said good-by to Casarena and headed to our hotel for the next 4 nights, the Mendoza Park Hyatt, right in the middle of Mendoza and across the street from a nice park. We checked in, found our room, got organized, then went exploring a little.
A plaza and open area with chairs and tables in the middle of the Hyatt
Parts of the hotel were built around an open plaza area and one part of that had some comfortable chairs and some tables that we made use of several nights. There was a pool area about 100 feet behind me as I was taking the photo above. We relaxed around the pool a couple of times, but never got in. After exploring the hotel a bit, we headed across the street to take a walk around the park.
The park and fountain attracted quite a few local people every night.
This was a good size park, probably 50 acres or so, and every night some vendors set up small booths and displayed their wares for sale on the sidewalks.
Some of the more colorful wares displayed on the sidewalks
As we walked on around the park, it was starting to get dark and a few lights were coming on. On the part of the park facing our hotel was a suspended/hanging sign of colored lights that was a bit unusual.
“City of Mendoza”
After the late and hearty lunch, we were not very hungry, so we just took some of our wine, some cheese, crackers, and little carrots out by the pool and enjoyed a little snack there. This would become our usual “evening meal” for most of the trip.
Thursday, Jan 16: Mendoza - Finca La Cayetana and Bodega Caelum
Today we would have our first full day of wine tasting and visiting wineries. We are in the Mendoza Providence, close to the city of Mendoza.
Finca La Cayetana
Our first visit would be to a winery quite a bit different from the somewhat large and modern winery the previous day: we would be visiting Finca La Cayetana in the Maipu area of Mendoza. Finca La Cayetana is owned and run by two brothers, Eduardo and Emila Soler, who are also the wine makers.
This is a little different from the other modern wineries.
Much of the winery is in an old house over 200 years old that has a lot of history. Some of the original Land Grant documents were displayed on a table: they were in Spanish, of course, so I could not read them, but they looked very official and were very old.
Emila poured everyone a welcome glass of wine.
We stood out in front of the winery for a while, listening while Eduardo told us about the winery and how they go about making their wines. To say they do everything in a natural and organic way would be an understatement. Emila poured everyone a welcoming glass of wine that we could sip on while we got the full tour.
Eduardo talking about their wines: (They are not big on formalities here.)
Although the winery is named Finca La Cayetana, they label the wines as Ver Sacrum. They grow grow monastrell, carignan, roussanne, marsanne and syrah grapes but their favorite is Grenache and they label those bottles in a striking manner.
Per asks a question while the winery cat keeps an eye on things.
After a good briefing, we headed through the house and out behind it where the vineyards were. I stopped Emila to ask him a question and we got separated for a while and had our own discussion. He told me about the tree in the back yard, I don’t remember what kind it is, but it is over 300 years old and appears very healthy.
This tree is over 300 years old!
According to Emila, there was (still is?) a cat that lived in the tree full time and never came down. It slept in the tree, caught insects, lizards, and birds for food, roaming the whole tree. Although they tried, they were not able to catch it. A few more steps beyond the tree brought us to the vineyards. They do not plow or cultivate the ground between the rows of vines, allowing any cut grass or weeds to naturally decompose in place to feed the vines. As with all vineyards in this area, they have to irrigate the vines and they use ditches to flood the vines because they think that more natural than the drip irrigation that is becoming more common.
Looking beyond the vineyard, with the Andes mountains in the distance
Water is the limiting factor in expanding vineyards around Mendoza today. Permits are issued to allow farmers (grapes or any other crop) to pull water from the rivers/streams or to pump from wells. All authorized permits are already in use, so no new vineyards can be started unless an old vineyard (or other crop area) is deactivated. Since drip irrigation is about three times as efficient in its use of water than ditches and flooding, if a vineyard is converted to drip irrigation, a much larger area can be irrigated with the same water, allowing vineyard expansion. This is putting pressure on vineyards to convert to the more expensive drip irrigation method. Because Finca La Cayetana was established long ago and included more land than currently in use, they have the necessary water permits to expand significantly and they do add a couple of hectares to the vineyards each year.
Tour Leader Brit and Paul (from New Zealand) have a new friend.
After hearing about their agricultural methods, we headed back inside for a more complete tasting of their wines.
The wines we tasted this day
Although not listed as some of their featured grape varieties, I was glad to see a Pinot Noir and a Cabernet Franc.
Ready to start the tasting (glassware companies do a good business around here)
We were not having lunch here (it was only about 11:00 at this point) so we just had some “pallet cleansing crackers” and water to accompany the wines. Some of the people on our tour were very serious about all the tastings, pulling out little booklets to take notes on and making frequent use of the wine spittoons to avoid consuming too much alcohol.
A memorable image of Gloria Swanson takes up the label of their Grenache,
With a group of knowledgeable wine drinkers, there was always a good discussion of the merits or the wines and the smell (nose) and taste of the various varietals. There was often a significant difference in the nose and taste of the same varietal between two different wineries.
Tasting concluded: I hope they have a dishwasher machine.
It was a very pleasant and informative tour and tasting and it was not even noon yet! We thanked Eduardo and Emila and loaded back into the bus to head to our next winery.
Bodega Caelum
Our next stop was Bodega Caelum and represented quite a change from Finca La Cayetana. Caelum is not really a large winery by Mendoza standards (about 75,000 bottles a year), but it was a very new and modern facility. Bodega Caelum does have one rather unique and unusual feature: they also raise and harvest Pistachios on a commercial scale. We saw Pistachio trees in several places on their property and there was a good-sized grove (orchard?) of young trees just off the patio where we had our lunch. If you are wondering about the meaning of the word “Caelum”, from the winery’s web page: “Caelum is a small constellation that can be observed from the southern hemisphere. It represents the chisel, the sculptor's tool. As the chisel is for the sculptor, our hands are the tool for making our wines.”
The entrance to Bodega Caelum winery (and Pistachio grower)
By the time we arrived at Boedga Caelum, had our introductions, and settled at a table on their patio, it was probably 1:30 and some of us were definitely ready for some lunch. We sampled a number of wines, pairing up well with the various items on the lunch menu. The very pretty Rosé matched up well with a somewhat unusual ceviche dish that started the meal.
The Rosé was pretty and nicely fresh tasting.
There was also a nice salad and, of course, the large hunk of beef that is a requirement in Argentina. It was all very good and filling, and we had to sit and recover for a few minutes before startng on a tour of the winery.
Recovering from the lunch with Pistachio trees in the distance
After recovering a little from the food and the wine, our host came around to take us on a tour of the winery facilities. As mentioned, it was all very new with very modern equipment and methods of processing the wine. There were plenty of Stainless Steel fermentation tanks along with the pipes and hoses to connect them to pumps and other mechanicals, like the filters.
Wineries must be a major consumer of stainless steel.
All significant wineries have to have some form of barrel room, and Caelum certainly does. The barrel room was not nearly as crowded as other wineries we’ve been to, so I would say that they expect to increase production and storage in the future.
Wineries also use a lot of Oak: mostly French, some American and some Croatian.
Bodega Caelum provided a very nice visit: their wines did not seem outstanding or especially unusual, but all I tasted were good solid representatives of the varietal. For a winery that has only been producing wine for about 10 years, that seems like a good start.
Back into the bus for the ride back to the hotel, we relaxed a bit and digested our lunch. After a short rest, Susan and I took a walk in the opposite direction of the park, to what is probably the “main street” of Mendoza, where there were a number of interesting looking restaurants. Unfortunately, we did not feel a bit hungry. Instead, we took our wine and snacks out to the tables and chairs in the plaza of the hotel and had another relaxing snack/meal.
Friday, Jan 17: Mendoza: Uco Valley (Paraje Altamira)
Today we got a large bus again because it would be more comfortable for the longer ride to what is becoming the hottest (in popularity, not temperature) area in the Mendoza Providence, the Uco Valley. Specifically, we will be going to the southern part of the Uco valley known as Paraje Altamira. One of the main attributes of the Uco Valley is the altitude, ranging from about 2500 feet to almost 4000 feet. With the valley being at the foot of the Andes mountains, this ensures cool nights to accompany the hot days, making an almost perfect climate for red wines. The ride to the Uco Valley took a little over 90 minutes to our first winery for the day. Both wineries we visit will be rather small, perhaps even tiny, but they will be somewhat different in character.
Finca Suarez Winery
The Finca Suarez vineyard and winery is run by Juanfa Suarez, a young and rather passionate winemaker. The vineyard was initially established by his grandfather, Facundo Suarez, long before the area became popular for growing wine grapes. The vineyard here is only about 8 hectares (20 acres) and produces Malbec and Chardonnay. They also have another vineyard in the area, Finca Perico, 30 hectares, where they grow Malbec, Semillón, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. Oh, the Cundo name you will see in several places…. The Vineyard, winery, and wine produced is Finca Suarez, but they host a restaurant and tasting room named Cundo in their facility: they both sort of support each other.
Walking into Finca Suarez and the Cundo restaurant
One thing that that Juanfa show us is one of a series of pits they dug to determine the exact soil types in different sections of the vineyard. Each pit is about 4 x 10 feet and 5 feet deep, about as deep as grape roots will usually go. In the sample pit close to the winery, you could clearly see the different layers of soil with sand, clay and one level with good sized limestone rocks. Different varieties of wine grapes like different types of soil so by determining the soil structure in each vineyard section, they could plant the grape variety that does best in that soil.
The view of the Andes Mountains actoss the vineyard
They did have a beautiful view of the Andes mountains from the winery. Although Argentina is known for their red wines, this part of the Uco Valley gets enough cooling effect from the mountains and high altitude that they can also make some very good white wines.
Juanfa Suarez explains their passion for making natural organic wines..
Finca Suarez makes only natural, fully organic wines and, like most Mendoza wineries, produces mostly red wines, especially Malbec. In our tasting, we did try two different versions of their Chardonnay and they were very good also.
The tables were well set up for the tasting.
We tasted 6 different wines, two versions of the Chardonay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Malbec, and Cabernet Franc: all were good and it would be difficult to choose a favorite.
The wines we tasted… all were good.
One interesting thing I noticed was that their labels all tend to emphasize the soil in various ways. This goes along with their research of the soil structures in their vineyards and their emphasis on the importance of the soil to the quality of the wine.
One of the Chardonnay wines was a “Pet-Nat”, a type of sparkling wine (on the left, above)
It was an interesting and educational visit, and I thought their study of the soils and how they made use of that information was especially good. We said good-by to Juanfa and piled back into the bus for the short ride to our next winery.
Finca La Igriega Winery
Compared to Finca Suarez, Finca La Igriege is a larger vineyard, but a smaller winery: I’ll explain in a moment. When we arrived, we were met by Nicolas Goldberg, the current owner/manager of the vineyard and winery. The property is about 25 hectares (65 acres) and was initially bought by his father, Marchelo, in 2001. Since then, most of the emphasis has been on building and tending the vineyard, rather than on producing wine. They currently only use about 10 – 15% of the grapes for their own La Igriega wines and sell the remaining grapes to other local wineries.
Entrance to La Igriega: the buildings are functional, not fancy.
La Igriega is one of the few vineyards that appears to be keeping up the rather old tradition of planting rose bushes at the end of many of the grape vine rows. (Roses are said to show the effects of some diseases or pests sooner than grape vines, allowing the grower to take corrective action sooner.) Nicolas took us for an interesting walk through the vineyard, talking about why they do some of the practices they use, such as the drip type irrigation that you can see below (the tubes between the leaves and the soil). Another point of interest was what initially looks like bird netting, but is actually “hail netting”. Thunderstorms frequently occur in the late summer, just as the grapes are getting close to ripe and the hail from a big storm can literally destroy most of the grapes in a crop. The netting is expensive to buy and use (installing and removing each year), but is considered as insurance against what could be the devastating loss of most of a crop. Some large growers take the risk and do not use the nets, assuming that they can make it through one year of a bad loss, but many of the smaller growers would be put out of business by such a loss, so they use the netting.
Hail netting positioned to allow workers to tend to the vines
We returned from our vineyard tour to find smoke coming from the grill, food on the tables, and wine ready to pour. This was to be a true, Argentine style Asado with plenty of beef of various kinds, empanadas, bread, salads and, of course, wine. If you look at the grill below, you will see the chef doing things the proper way: the fire is off to the side (on the right) while only the coals are put under where the meats are cooking. I will comment that the asado did start off as a traditional asado would do, by starting with “offal” or “organ meat”. I think we all took some when offered, but I have to say it was not my favorite meat of the day. (We decided that the offal we had was probably small intestines, but other organs are frequently used.) Once we got past that, it was smooth sailing.
No flames under the cooking meat, only hot coals
Numerous other dishes were passed around also, such as what I think were the best empanadas we had on the trip and some delicious homemade bread. One dish was a simple salad consisting of shredded/graded carrot with sliced oranges in the juice from the cut oranges. It was surprisingly good and we have served it to our friends a couple of times since returning.
Empanadas and homemade bread… both very good
The wines were poured freely, including a white/Blanco (Chardonnay, I believe), Cabernet Sauv., Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and a blend. All good, although, as mentioned earlier, I am partial to Cabernet Franc and theirs was very good.
Some of the wines we tasted
I think a couple of comments about this winery are in order…. This is definitely a “Mom and Pop” undertaking. Nicolas is the manager and I would guess that he is very “hands on”. His wife (I didn’t get her name) was out helping with preparing and serving the asado, and even their two boys (probably about 5 and 7) were helping (well, as much as two young boys are likely to help), and an uncle as the chef manning the grill. I got the impression that the winery is run in much the same way as the asado lunch was. Also, as I mentioned earlier, only a small part of the grapes grown at the vineyard go into their own wines. Nicolas said that he hopes to increase the amount of wine he makes, someday building a new and larger winery in the middle of the vineyard, where he has some space reserved for it and eventually use all their grapes on their own wines. With the effort they are putting onto the wines, I truly hope they are successful in realizing their dream.
It was another hour and a half ride back to the hotel in Mendoza where Susan and I took a longer walk, first over to the main street behind the hotel, then a turn around the park. After that slight exercise, we just had some more of our wine and snacks out in the open area of the hotel and called it a day.
Saturday, Jan 18: Mendoza - Bodega Otero Ramos & Bodega y Cavas de Weinert
Today, we will visit two moderately large wineries, but they will be somewhat different in history and character.
Bodega Otero Ramos, Luján de Cuyo
Our first stop today was at Bodega Otero Ramos vineyard and winery, a little outside of Mendoza in the Luján de Cuyo area. This is a relatively new facility having been founded in 1990 by winemaker Manuel Otero Ramos, with the purchase of the land and the vineyards were mostly planted in the mid 1990s. If I remember correctly, most of the current buildings were built around 2007, probably about the time that the vines were reaching 10 years of age and producing well. A young woman, one of the family members, gave us a very nice tour of the vineyard and the winery.
The winery building: winery in the basement, public area on the top floor.
The vineyards total 62 Hectares (a little over 200 acres) so there is plenty of room to produce quite a bit of wine. They are known for their Malbec and Petit Verdot but also produce a number of other varietals.
Part of the vineyards: note the hail nets.
In addition to the vineyards and land for the several buildings, they also have their own pond, several acres in size, that is used as a reservoir for their irrigation system to make them somewhat independent of the local ditch based water distribution system.
The equipment and storage building and a few geese
Per (one of our leaders) noticed that they seemed to have a much larger capacity to make wine (de-stemmers, crushers, fermentation tanks) than they could possibly keep busy with “only” 62 Hectares. Our host said that they did contract with local growers who did not have their own processing equipment and actually processed several times more other wine than their own. The facility is fully organic and largely self-sustaining, using solar panels over much of the main winery building for electricity.
One of several areas with lots of stainless steel
Inside the winery there were a LOT of large stainless steel fermentation tanks and also quite a few concrete ones. Quite a few of these are in use by the growers who contract with Bodega Otero Ramos to process their wines.
More stainless, but notice the “hatches” in the floor in front of the tanks.
The barrel room looked more as I expect one to look, with stacks of barrels, close together, and barrels in various places on the floor. Someone needs a good record-keeping system to keep track of all these.
Lots of oak in use in their barrel room
As we saw at several other wineries, concrete is becoming more popular for aging some of the wine. In the photo below, the walls on both sides are actually the outside walls of large concrete vats for the wine. After fermentation in the stainless steel tanks on the floor just above, the wine is transferred to concrete tanks. Remember those hatches in the floor? When fermentation is complete, large hoses are attached to the tanks and connected through those hatches which empty into these concrete vats for aging. Once aged long enough, the wine will be put in oak barrels and placed in the barrel room until ready for bottling.
Concrete vats on both sizes with oak barrels ready for the wine
After seeing all the facilities for making wine, we were getting thirsty, so we headed up to the top floor and to the tasting room. The tasting was very well done with good explanations of the wines. All of the wines were good to very good, but I don’t remember any of them making me want to say “WOW!”: Perhaps they just need a few more years of practice and aging to get to that point, which may actually be a good lead into our next winery visit.
Preparing for our tasting of five wines: all were good.
After the tasting, we loaded back into the bus for a short ride to our next visit.
Bodega y Cavas de Weinert in Luján de Cuyo
If Bodega Otero Ramos somewhat suffered from being so young, Bodega y Cavas de Weinert certainly did not have that problem. The winery and many of the buildings and facilities we toured were built in 1890, so are over 100 years old. While Bodega y Cavas de Weinert has certainly adopted many of the modern wine making tools and processes, they also very much cling to some old traditions and focus on wine with some significant age. The day was getting warm as we arrived, so the welcome glass of a nice rosé went over well and we were told to hang onto our glasses for a while.
The front of the main winery building
Although I’m sure much of the winery building has been renovated several times, the 100+ year age is still apparent. The current company and ownership of the facility started in 1976 with the purchase of the old winery and some vineyards by Don Bernardo Weinert, a Brazilian of German origins. That was almost 50 years ago and much of the winery was already 80 years old at that time.
We got an excellent tour of the facility, focusing on some of the older features which were very interesting, and occasionally tasty. One of the first areas we toured was the long row of concrete aging tanks. Most of the concrete tanks had simple faucets that could be used by the winemaker to draw a wine sample to taste.
They used a lot of concrete tanks also.
Since we were all budding winemakers, it was only natural for us to have a taste of the wine to make sure it was aging properly. Our hostess drew some wine for each of us as we held our glasses up to the faucet.
Sampling the wine in the concrete tank
We went from the concrete tanks to a area with very large oak casks (called Tonels or Tonneaux) to get some characteristics of aging in oak. These Tonels have been used for many years, so they add very little flavor to the wine but the small amount of oxygen exposure (compared to concrete or glass aging) gives the wine a different character. Tonels are most common in France, especially Bordeaux, and generally are in the 500 – 1000 liter size, but these looked bigger than 1000 liters to me.
When I looked at the photo below somewhat later, it reminded me of a a line of old soldiers standing at attention: each soldier (or Tonel) even has two feet showing.
Old Tonels, or old soldiers?
The wine in some of the Tonels has also been around for a while. The photo below shows a Tonel containing Malbec harvested in 2004, now 20 years old. Our hostess said that it will probably be bottled in another year or two and will then probably age in the bottle for another year (to rest) before being sold. These people definitely believe in not rushing their wine. We’ll see more of this later.
This wine is is 20 years old and still in the cask.
We spent quite a bit of time in some of the older cellars, among some other more traditional barrel shaped Tonels and tasted some of the wine from one of them also. This was probably the most interesting winery tour for me. But, it is getting late and some of us are getting hungry, so it is time for lunch (at about 1:30). Tables were set up out in a grassy courtyard with large umbrellas and a large tree providing shade.
A very pleasant place for a lunch, even on a hot summer day
As we approached the lunch site, one guy was getting the wine ready for us and another was grilling the various meats.
The white wine was cold and the red wine was proper room (cellar) temperature.
To start us off there was some more of the rosé (a Sauvignon Blanc) and some white (Chenin Blanc). Of course, there would be several variations of Malbec, along with a Merlot and a Cabernet Franc. And, of course, the meats were looking good also, including a pork shoulder, a rib-eye steak, and some “flame roasted ribs” along with appropriate salad and vegetables.
Just a little beef and pork for us
All of the red wines we had well aged: I don’t think there was any vintage after 2021. The malbec (on the right below) and a malbec dominate blend (left) were vintages of 2019 and 2013 respectively. Remember I commented that I thought the casks/tonels looked larger than 1000 liters? While writing this, I took a good look at the fine print on the label of the “Cask Selection” bottle below (the dark label). It reads “AGED IN 2500-6000 LITRE CASKS” so I guess some of them were larger than 1000 liters.
Even the visitors got the well aged wines.
After lunch we visited their store and it was interesting just looking at what they have available for sale. There was a double magnum (equivalent to four normal bottles) of their Cask Selection sale priced at $780. Then there was the boxed set of four wines (two malbecs, a Cab, and a merlot) with vintages of 1977, 1994, 1994 and 1999. There was no price on that box and I was afraid to ask.
Malbec (1977), Cabernet (1994), Malbec (1994), and Merlot (1999)
After a delightful visit and lunch, we loaded back onto the bus and headed back to the Hyatt for our last evening in Mendoza. A little walk in the evening, followed by some snacks and wine in the hotel atrium before turning in for the day. Looking forward to a big day tomorrow!
Press your browser “Back button” to go back to the main-line document, or