Best name for a hostel ever

Unsurprisingly, after the night before, we were not thrilled about the alarm that went off at 9am to ensure we could take advantage of the free breakfast at the hostel.  The slices of bread did not offer us any redemption, but the real filter coffee sure did!  That might have been the first cup of coffee we had consumed, that wasn’t coffee in a tea bag, or instant.  Still, we were a bit slow going for our day of wine touring.

Wine tasting

We hopped on the tram in front of the hostel and switched to a bus, arriving in Maipu about an hour later.  We grabbed some bikes from a shop, and pedaled off to the recommended wine bar down the street.  For 40 pesos each ($4) we were given five generous tastings, which we enjoyed with the company of three Isreali travelers, and were sent off with a bottle of the owner’s homemade wine.

One of our new Israeli friends

We had a bit of an uphill battle with the hot sun and the wine we had just consumed, but we managed to make it to another winery a few kms away, where we sat on a lovely patio and had another generous tasting of four more wines, for 50 peso each.  Marieke had been emailing a winery she does business with at home, so we grabbed our bikes and headed to Trapiche, one of the biggest wineries in Argentina, where we had a full tour and tasting.  We grabbed a bottle of a delicious blend for a splurge of 110 pesos, and tried to make one last winery before the 6pm close time of most.  We arrived just in time, savouring our last tasting by chatting to a few other stragglers from England.

Trapiche winery tasting

We all pedaled back to the bike shop, where we headed on our on way, as we were in desperate need of food.  We cooked our signature dish on this trip of pasta, and opened the blend from Trapiche before stumbling to bed (mostly from exhaustion- blog post about how little sleep we’ve gotten this trip coming soon).

Determined to start earlier the next day, we took the bus to Chacras, a suburb just south of Mendoza.  We were looking for a recommended winery called Clos de Chacras, but weren’t doing so well after a couple failed attempts due to the different directions given to us.  As we walked past a bar, we heard “girls, I need your help”.  Our instinct was to listen for a speech of hardship, but it turned out we just needed to help the owner move a table back inside.  As he spoke English, we asked him directions to the winery and he offered to drive us, as he wanted to visit a friend who worked there.  

Happy to have made it!

We had a fantastic tour of the boutique family winery, enjoyed a tasting, and splurged (actually, it was 550 pesos, or $55 CAD) for a three course meal, plus two glasses of wine, coffee and unlimited sparkling water).  It was delicious, and we didn’t feel too guilty as we had only eaten in a restaurant two times in the month we’d been on the road.  Finishing lunch, the rain had finally stopped, the sun had come out, and we walked an hour down the road to fit another winery into the day.  We had a good tasting with an Irish couple who were on a whirlwind tour of Argentina in three weeks, and caught the bus back to Mendoza.

Lunch time!

Walking from the bus station, we were pretty tired, but not too tired to explore the wine store, where we settled on a 200 peso bottle of Malbec from a winery we were supposed to visit, but was unreachable without a car.  Over dinner of take- out pizza we decided to save the bottle for the next day, breaking into the homemade wine instead, which proved to be “drinkable”.  Hey, it was cheap.  We crawled into bed just after midnight (first ones to bed of course), ready for another early rise to go meet my travel friend from way back in 2009, who was arriving at the bus station two hours before we were leaving for San Rafael.

Alta Vista Winery