Mendoza is known world-wide as the capital of Argentinian wines. The area is surrounded by vineyards and there are ample tours available which can cater for the expert connoisseur to the basic backpackers.
After assessing what was on offer we decided to go for our own self-guided tour of the vineyards in the nearby area of Maipu. The best way to get around is to cycle. When you hop off the bus there are many places offering to rent bikes. They also provide you with a basic map so you can plan your own route.
We decided to head to one of the vineyard furthest away to work our way back. This was all well and good but the maps weren’t exactly to scale and it ended up being 10km away. I was not too happy to be turning up for our first tour bright red and sweating, gasping for water rather than wine in the blistering heat.
After a short tour around the small family run vineyard we were able to recover with a tasting of 6 different wines including a Merlot, Tempranillo, Syrah, Malbec, Cabernet Saviogne and Pleno.
We both agreed the Malbec was our favourite. The deep red was delicious, with subtle floral and dried fruit aromas and sweet round tannins, it left us wanting more. Thankfully we didn’t have to cycle too far as the next vineyard was only 1km away.
Here we stopped for lunch with a bottle of Malbec. The view over the vineyards was superb.
The great thing about cycling around Maipu is that you can break up your wine tasting by visiting other places. We decided to stop off at an olive oil and liquor tasting room. After sampling 6 shots of extremely sweet liquors trying to steer the bike in a straight line was becoming more and more difficult.
On Karl’s orders, our next stop was the beer garden which turned out to be a lovely place to relax in the sun.
Feeling like we were becoming hazards on the road we handed our bikes back and walked to our final tasting room where we sampled another 5 wines.
Unable to take any more Malbec, Karl ended the day enjoying his beer while I managed to fit in one more small gall of vino before stumbling back to the hostel.
