35 Wines

I guess when you live so close to the wine region it never occurs to you to go wine tasting two days in a row. However, we only had three days in Mendoza and spent two of them trying out two of the wine regions.

For our first tour we hired a private guide, Miguel, to take us to the Uco wine region. On this tour we stopped at the wineries. Each winery was both more generous than those in  the US with both information and wine. The "tastes" were nearly full glasses. By the time we made it to our lunch stop at the third winery, we were a bit buzzed. So much so that after lunch Holly and I found a nice spot in the sun for an hour-long siesta. Unfortunately, this left us a bit groggy for dinner. Since we booked our reservation several months in advance, we rallied but didn't find that restaurant was as good as the winery where we stopped for lunch.

Our second tour was a group tour to the Lujan region. We learned from our previous day to pace ourselves. Particularly important given that we had four stops on this tour. On this tour, in addition to tasting wines we also tried our hands at blending wines. After thinking mine tasted pretty good, we tied the winemaker's blend and decided to leave it to the professionals.

I think one of the most interesting things about the region is the fact that Mendoza is essentially a dessert at the foot of the Andes. The Andes provided a dramatic backdrop but apparently does not deliver a significant amount of water.

When all was said and done, we tasted somewhere in the realm of 35 wines in two days. Now we just have to figure out how to get our two plus cases home without incurring significant airline fees.