South America-Day 17- Mendoza-"Los vinos y los ninos"

So we're only in Mendoza for two days, and while we knew what two areas we wanted to hit, we didn't have anything booked before arriving. With that in mind we were up and out the door before 8 to see if we could jump on a tour of Uco Valley that day. If not, we would book it for the following day and instead go biking through Maipu. When we walked out the front door, we were in for a shock-- over night the weather turned to winter. It was around 30 and lightly snowing/sleeting, so while we went to the tour groups to ask about availability, we knew our back up plan might now be a miserable option. Anyway, skipping to the chase, we book Uco for the next day and bail on biking instead hiring a driver through the hotel to take us us to Maipu.

Only about 20 minutes by car, this is one of five wine areas in the Mendoza region. We stopped at three overall: Trapiche, Carinae, and Di Familia de Tommaso. Each one varied dramatically given their size and history. Trapiche was recently added to the top five largest wine producers in the world and they had the longest-running history. A blend of old meets new, they have restored the architecture and still have some of the old mechanisms for viewing but also have a beautiful new tasting room with glass floors allowing you a glimpse of the barrel storage below. Apparently in the older vineyards in Mendoza, they are known for having concrete tanks which are better for temperature control given the wide ranging spread of this desert climate (but unfortunately are not better for earthquakes). We learned that 60% of their production is Malbec and this varietal constitutes 80% of the wine exports. Interestingly, malbec grape s actually came from chile in 1522 but wine grapes originally made it into this hemisphere on Colubus's secons trip and the first vineyard was in the dominican republic. One cool project this winery does is its brand called Iscay which means "two" in Quechua and describes the special, more inventive blendings they're changing up each year. For example, their 2010 was a blend of syrah and viognier that they partnered with a santa barbara winery on.

From Trapiche, we stopped and has lunch at a place our driver took us-- not our preference to get sucked into a tourist trap type place but we managed to make a quick lunch of it and get back to the wine tasting. Next we went to Carinae, which has only been around since the turn of the century, but made some great wines. They are a much smaller producer and is actually owned by a french couple who relocated to mendoza after deciding they didn't want to go back to paris full time (they were thinking of splitting the year, but ended up in mendoza full time). Apparently he is very into astronomy so that comes across in the name of the vineyard, the names of the wines and the grouped tastings, as well as their logo which looks like a grape leaf on a vein but is actually part of the carinae constellation which is found in the southern hemisphere.

Since we were well into the afternoon, we only had time for one more stop which was the rowdiest of the day: Di Familia de Tomasso. This was small as well but we preferred the wines at the boutique Carinae. What is particularly notable was how involved people were at this one and how many people were there. They have a restaurant as well which surely added to the overall count, as did the numerous families. Throughout the day but especially here, there were kids everywhere. It's winter break down here and whip's we haven't ever seen many kids in wineries in the states, apparently the parents down here desperately needed some vino! Just kidding, but it was remarkable just how many kids (from babies to pre teens) were running around. Opted not to do the tour and instead headed back to town.

One of the things on our Argentine hit list was a good steak/ meat dinner that we wanted to so via parilla. Luckily one of the best parillas is actually attached to the Park Hyatt, so we were able to go out to an awesome dinner while still avoiding the frigid temperatures. We had grilled provolone as an app and a huge plate of grilled meat including, steak, pork, sausages, etc. Definitely a lot of food and we were stuffed but glad we had indulged in the experience.

List of wines tasted:
Trapiche- malbec reserva 2011
Trapiche- Fona de cave cab franc reserva 2011
Trapiche- Iscay 2010- syrah and viognier *
Trapiche- iscay 2008 malbec and cab frqnc**
Carinae-Torrontes 2012**
Carinae- Rosado 2012*
Carinae- malbec reserva 2010 **
Carinae- malbec finca deneza 2010*
Carinae- octans malbec/syrah
Carinae- cuvee brigitte 2011 malbec/cab sauv
Carinae- cab sauv reserve 2010 *
Carinae- syrah reserve 2010 **
Carinae- prestige 2008 (70 malbec, 25 cab, 5 syrah) **
Carinae- passato de los andes (dessert wine)
Di Tomasso- Torrontes
Di Tomasso- malbec
Di Tomasso- Cab Sauv
Di Tomasso- a new dessert blend fortifird with grappa