My wife and I just got back from a week of wine-tasting in Mendoza. We had a terrific time and were aided greatly by some of the advice on WB. Below find some thoughts that I would offer to future travelers. Feel free to reach out directly or ask questions if you’re planning a trip!
What we did right
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Hire a driver.…There are 3 main wine regions - Uco Valley, Lujan de Cuyo, and Maipu - and it seems that most of the bodegas/wineries offer (roughly) a 9am, 11am, 1pm (with lunch) and 4pm tasting. If you want to visit multiple wineries in a day, having a driver makes it 10X easier to get from place to place. We paid an extremely reasonable $100/day for a non-English speaking driver that was great. Seemed like English-speaking drivers were in the $150-200/day range, but we speak Spanish so it was alright.
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Eat fantastic, drawn-out lunches…We ate lunch with pairing at Ruca Malen ($60/ea), La Azul ($40/ea), and El Enemigo ($70/ea). Best wine: Enemigo with their single vineyard Cab Francs; Best food: Ruca Malen with grilled sweatbreads and the ribeye; Best scenery: La Azul for being in the shadows of the Andes (Azul is in Uco Valley, ~70 minutes from downtown)
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Explore non-malbec varietals…we had some great cab francs (Enemigo, Pulenta), sauvignon blancs (Caelum), semillion (Mendel) and merlots (Laureano Gomez). Lots of experimentation happening down there (some is working, a lot is not) so great to think about it as a new wine frontier that’s very much in transition.
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Brought wine home…we bought a 12-bottle shipper box from Sol y Vino (great wine shop downtown), bought a mixed case of our favorites, and checked it, as-is, on our way home. We were worried about the box breaking/being damaged, the wine cooking on a tarmac somewhere, and customs taking our wine, but none of these things happened. I think we got lucky to have temperate climates or short stops on our way home. We went through customs in Houston and the guy asked me what I had in the box, I told him fantastic wine from Mendoza, and he said “Have a great day”…so worked out alright.
What we wish we did differently
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Stay in the Uco Valley…the Uco Valley is the best quality of the 3 wine regions, and it’s also the most scenic. We underestimated how far Uco Valley is from downtown Mendoza and figured we’d do day trips. We did half of our week staying at a boutique hotel in Lujan de Cuyo (~20 minutes from downtown) and half at the Diplomatic Hotel in downtown Mendoza. If we had to do it again, I’d stay much further south in Uco for the first half, before moving to the city. Piedra Infinita was a bodega that was highly recommended but we couldn’t make it to because of distance.
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Skip Francis Mallman’s 1884 restaurant …we thought this was going to be one of the highlights of the trip after being seduced by his story on Chef’s Table, but I think it’s gone downhill. We didn’t have a bad experience, but it wasn’t noteworthy either. We bought a sparkling to start (Luigi Bosca Brut Natural) that was weirdly flat. The somm replaced the bottle and the 2nd one was better, but still not right. We didn’t want to send back 2 bottles. We were introduced to a small winery called Initium for the main course Malbec that was really good. We found this at the wine shop downtown and brought a couple bottles home. The food was 8.5/10…we enjoyed ourselves, but wasn’t incredible.
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Spend more time at Mendoza wine bars…there aren’t many, but I think I may have spent the first part of the trip in the city’s wine bars, tasting and exploring different producers, and then the 2nd part of the week trying to track down those producers and visit their bodegas. We learned a lot and were introduced to many producers on the 2nd half of the trip that we probably would have visited (or tried) if we had time afterwards. For wine bars, try Chinitas (they have ~5 bottles open each night from small producers and each glass is ~$2) or Sala de Maridajes (owned by Sol y Vino people, seemed like more mainstream wineries the night we were there (but good!)).
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Bring more USD…we weren’t actually that bothered we didn’t do this, because the whole trip was fairly inexpensive, but when we were there the street exchange rate for USD to pesos was 80 to 1 and the bank rate (or ATM, in our case) was 60 to 1. If we were going to be there longer, this would’ve been a decent savings to bring a bag of cash instead of using credit card or pulling from ATMs at the 60 to 1 rate.
Wines we drank
Wine of the trip: Initium Gran Malbec 2014
I won’t list them all, as we tasted over 70 wines, but here are those we visited with a grade for the wine and the experience:
- Benegas (Wines B-, Experience A-) i think they have better wines, but those available on the tasting were “okay” at best
- Mendel (Wines: A-, Experience B+) high quality wines, especially the malbec and unus blend; not to be missed
- Ruca Malen (lunch w/ pairing) (Wines: B+, Experience A) solid wines, and amazing lunch w/ pairing experience
- Caelum (Wines: B, Experience B+) very experimental, reds too oaky and whites too basic; they do have an italian fiano that was interesting
- Pulenta (Wines A-, Experience A-) terrific wines, well made; cab franc was stand-out and facility is beautiful
- La Azul (Wines B+, Experience A-) couldn’t ask for better scenery, good wines…don’t miss it for lunch
- Laureano Gomez (Wines B+, Experience A) garage winemaker (in the most literal sense) with a great pedigree; unique experience with good wines
- Cruzat (Wines A, Experience A) i was stunned to have a respectable sparkling wine down there; had an '06 millesime that was complex and beautiful
- Achavel-Ferrer (Wines B+, Experience B+) robert parker’s dream; big, fruit bombs; good experience, but not my type of wine; tasting interrupted by a 5.1 earthquake!
- Enemigo (Wines B+, Experience A-) quite commercial-feeling; good lunch; single vineyard cab franc flight was awesome demonstration of altitude/terroir
Other wines we had
- Initium (new winery founded by husband-wife team, only 1,000 bottles per year; buy at Vino y Sol wine shop or during dinner at 1884)
- Benedito Pecado (new winery on same fields as Lorca (cab franc, malbec) that has less time in the barrel and is fruitier)
- Luigi Bosca Brut Natural (drank this at 1884, but think both bottles (first one was sent back) were flawed)
We had a lot of fun down there and would recommend it. Let me know if you have questions!
Bob