Back in late November 2007, I went to Mendoza with Gina. Gina is fellow traveller that I met while in Argentina.
I have been wanting for some time to go to Mendoza to see the bodegas (vin-yards) and also get closer to the Andes. This was going to be a bit of a special trip to go around and spend a few days with the main intention eating good food and especially drinking wine. Some years ago, I went to the Torres Bodega just outside Barcelona. It was a very enjoyable and memorable day trip and going to Mendoza was a chance to do the same thing but on a bigger scale.
The city of Mendoza is about 1000 kilometres from Buenos Aires; it is located in the province of the same name. You could either fly or take the bus. It is quite a long bus journey about 14 some hours. That is an awfully long time to be sitting on a bus. But in Argentina, you can take buses overnight which have special seats that flatten out like beds; they are called "camas" in Spanish. It is the same idea of flying first class but much cheaper. There is an attendant on the bus who serves food and drink to the passengers just like on airplane. The journey from Buenos Aires to Mendoza was Ok; in fact we did not book the correct seats and got what was a semi-cama; seats that partially recline; we did ask the agent at the booking counter that it was full cama; strike that one up to limited Spanish.
We caught the bus on Sunday night from the omnibus terminal in Retiro on the 25th around 6PM. The place is absolutely massive. Many people travel by bus in Argentina as it more economical than flying. Travelling by rail is not much of an option in Argentina. While we waiting for the bus departure, we stopped at cafeteria in the terminal. I ordered a beer the only choice was Quilmes. Quilmes is not that great a beer; sometimes it can be ok to drink but not today - it tasted kind of soapy. The journey overnight was ok; we could rest but not really sleep on the bus.
Omnibus Terminal in Retiro, Buenos Aires
We arrived in Mendoza in the morning and then proceeded to change our return journey to get a seats that were the full cama. We were going use Andesmar for the journey back. Andesmar comes highly rated in the guidebooks. But the computer system was down at the bus terminal so we went to the hotel. And from the hotel, we tried to book the tickets online; This turned into one long kafuffle. The web-site is in English but when you book the tickets it switches to Spanish which was not terrible but made things more complicated. Basically, the web-site kept reporting stupid error messages and it appeared that the transaction did not go through. So we then went to local Andesmar office near the hotel and tried to book the tickets there. We did that and we get back to the hotel and find out that the online booking did do go through. So now we had 2 sets of tickets each. We then tried to get one set of tickets cancelled and get a refund. This again was not easy. One of the people at Andesmar did get on the phone to his colleagues and sorted it out. This guy looked like he lost the will to live even before we arrived and were speaking to him in nothing but English with our booking problems. Understandably Argentina is a Spanish speaking country and one cannot always expect to do things in English. But Andesmar is a big operation and they gets many tourists & travellers using there buses who speak English. They need to sort their web-site out.
Anyway, back to the journey. We were staying in Hotel Argentino which is in the centre of town by the main square. The staff there were friendly and extremely helpful. We were able to depend on them to make many inquires for us and make bookings for excursions & restaurants. There was one funny thing in the lobby of the hotel. They had a sign telling the guests that they were being recorded on CCTV for security purposes. But instead of saying "Guest you are being recorded" it said something like "Passengers you are being recorded".
On our first day in Mendoza we went to the Bodega Famalia Zaccardi. Most of the bodegas are a good distance out of the city. You would need to hire a car or go on a tour to get to them. I heard that you can rent bicycles and do it that way but it can be a daunting riding on the roads with all the big trucks. So had booked ourselves in for a tour and lunch and had a private hire car take us there. It was 90 pesos a person to have lunch there. Which was less than £15 pounds with the exchange rate.
Beef!
And it was going to be a typical asado (BBQ) done on a parllila (grill). And we would get to try many of the different wines from the bodega with our meal. There was so much food that by a certain point we could not eat anymore meat. The meal was something like this:
bread served with various types of olive oil made at the bodega, they just don't make wine
various types of empanadas (meat filled pastries)
chorizo and morcilla cocida (blood sausage)
beef
roasted vegetables on the side
more beef
pork
chicken
and finally Crème Brûlée with vanilla helado for desert
We tried various wines like malbec & tempranillo with the meal. I bought a bottle to bring back to the UK but because of security restrictions I had to leave in Brazil; I wanted to bring on in my carry on luggage. I did not want to pack a bottle of wine in my suitcase; I did that once before with some ginger wine and it broke and got all over my clothes. An Italian acquaintance once remarked why not transfer the wine from a glass bottle into a plastic one. Not a bad idea perhaps something to consider in the future. Or if I know I am travelling with wine have a crate or designated suitcase for the wine with lots of padding inside. Of course, I could have bought some wine in the duty free but I was not flying straight back from Argentina to the UK.
It was quite the meat feast. It was good to see that a table of Argentines across from us could also had to "bail out" of the eating at some point. They say Argentines eat a lot of meat but even this meal would put anyone to a test of meat consumption.
We then went for a tour of the bodega. The area is actually desert and all vin-yards use irrigation with water brought down from the mountains. The operation we saw was very high tech with stainless steel vats full of grape juice being made into wine. It was quite a hot day in Mendoza as well; it was very bright sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky. We going in out of buildings in from nice cooled rooms out into the blazing sun. I had to keep put my sunglasses on and off to adjust to the change in light.
We then returned to the hotel to chill out and later went to one of most famous restaurants in Argentina "Francis Mallmann 1884"; Gina had heard about this restaurant before. The restaurant was on the grounds of an old bodega. We took a taxi there as again it was a bit out of the city of Mendoza; it was a bit surprising that we had to go through a security gate to get into the restaurant; it was like going through a check point The grounds of the restaurant were quite something. I would describe it is a hacienda style building with a courtyard in the middle. You first enter through a large wooden door into a foyer where there is a bar and then you are led into the restaurant proper.
It was a lovely night to be out but we ate so much food at lunch that we did not have much of an appetite come dinner. Here we were in a really fabulous restaurant but not feeling very hungry. I had a dish of prawns and Gina had a dish of crab legs. I had a desert of roasted fruits with helado (ice cream); I had not had a desert quite like that before; the roasting of the fruit causes them to caramelise; I think there was apples & pears in the desert and some other fruits. And again with the exchange rate, such a fine meal was not that expensive coming from the UK.
Web-site in Spanish for 1884 restaurant
A detailed article about Francis Mallmann and his journey to become a pre-eminent chef in South America.
Article about Francis Mallmann from Conde Naste magazine
Garzon Restaurant in Uruguay (another restaurant with information in English)
To be continued...