Day 20 (1/21/18)- Bodegas de Maipú

So we were very excited about going to some bodegas (wineries) on our first day in Mendoza. We proceeded to look into it a little more and realized that none of the places that we wanted to go (really none of the places at all that we could find) were open on Sunday… We only have 2.5 days in Mendoza, so, we felt a little bummed and weren’t really sure what we should do instead. After we had resigned ourselves to walking around the city park for the day, we gave one last ditch effort and asked the hostel owner if there was anything he would recommend for us to do on a Sunday. We were in luck! He said there was a tour that included a couple bodegas as well as an olive oil factory. We didn’t know much, but we were in!

The tour came to pick us up at 10:30 and we headed to Familia Cecchin Bodega first for a tour and tasting. Their wines were all organic. This was my first visit to an organic winery- apparently they plant mint, basil, flowers, and fruit trees throughout the grapes. The fruit trees help attract the insects to the sweeter fruits (plums, peaches) instead of the grapes, and the fruit drops down and acts as a natural fertilizer. The mint and basil repel the insects. The flowers are an early warning sign if something is going wrong.

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Next we headed to an olive oil factory. We were running a little behind, so unfortunately we didn’t have time to do the tour, but we did do the tasting! We tried tradicional, garlic, rosemary, oregano, orange, and lemon. All of them were delicious! I really wanted to buy a bottle (it was only $5 per bottle), but it was decided that we didn’t really have enough room in our luggage and we don’t want to carry it around for the next 2 months… (sorry, we forgot pictures of the actual oil or olives)

Next stop, the second bodega- Carinae. This one was started by a Frenchman and his wife with no prior experience after they came to Argentina for a work trip and decided it would be a nice place to stay! He is an amateur astronomer, so many of the names are from Southern hemisphere constellations. Again, we did a tour and a tasting of 3 different wines.

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Next stop was a 3rd bodega, but this time for lunch! We expected a small lunch of cold cuts and cheese, but then got to the table and there was a feast waiting for us of steak, sausage, meat empanadas, grilled vegetables, bread, and homestyle french fries, plus local olive oil and balsamic vinegar. What a great surprise! The surroundings also weren’t too bad.