“Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized.” – Andre Simon, Wine Merchant and Writer (about wine 🙂)

We arrived in Mendoza at the start of grape harvest season. We love drinking wine, but we know very little about it, other than “mmmm…delicious,” so when we arrived in Mendoza, one of the top wine producing regions of the world, we knew we needed expert guidance. We signed up for a two-day long wine tour with a guide who explained the history of the region’s grapes as we toured 4 different wineries and tasted over 16 different wines each of the two days (fortunately they also provided transportation so we could fully concentrate on our wine-tasting responsibilities). Mendoza is divided into three regions: Maipu, Lujan de Cuyo, and Valle de Uco. The best Malbecs in the world come from Lujan de Cuyo, while Uco is the upcoming high altitude wine-producing region nestled right next to the Andes, with rich Malbecs, Cabernets and some delicious Chardonnays and Sauvignon Blancs.

Unfortunately, El Niño has led to a very wet summer, so the region’s wine makers are struggling with the lack of sun and grapes oversaturated with water. We were warned by multiple wineries that their 2016 wines might not be the best. The first day of our tour we went to Uco and experienced the El Niño effect first hand, as we were treated to rain and thunderstorms all day. Thank goodness you don’t need to be outdoors to enjoy wine, so we toured the production areas and drank wines in the warm and dry storerooms. On day two, the sun finally came out as we toured Lujon de Cuyo and Erika and I couldn’t take our eyes off the snow-capped mountains just beyond the vineyards as we enjoyed our wine.

Three parts of the tour stood out as unexpectedly awesome:

1. A blind smell test at the start of our first winery tour, where we had the chance to smell the component scents of wines with our eyes closed and try to guess what we were smelling (e.g., grass, chocolate, cloves, berries, oregano, etc.). Shockingly, I edged out Erika, who couldn’t quite place the smell of black pepper!
2. The chance to geek out on operations processes as we toured the bottling and quality control area of a small-scale, high-end winery. It was really cool to see the effort they put into the process and controls (including a full chem lab) to make sure every bottle is as similar as possible. The consultant and accountant within us were pleased!
3. Eating grapes straight off the vine! We tried both Chardonnay (green) and Malbec (red) grapes. We thought they’d taste bitter or just not good in grape form, but we were pleased to find out that they were delicious!

– Phil

Observing the wine-making process

Small French Oak barrels in Catena Zapata’s storeroom

Examining a winery’s private collection

Malbec grapes soaking up some much needed sun

Enjoying a brief respite from the thunderstorm on day 1 of wine tasting

Bottling process at Sophenia, a quality control delight!

Sampling the Chardonnay grapes just harvested at Pulenta Estate

Identifying the fragrances from Andeluna’s Malbec/Cab blend