Day 57 - 59 Mendoza

Day 57 - Travel to Mendoza

We left El Calafate at 1100 with a stop over in Buenos Aires before landing in Mendoza at 8 pm. The airport in El Calafate was fairly new and had free wifi. We get excited when we get the chance to surf the internet while waiting at the airport. How many more years until wifi is fast and available everywhere throughout the world? Seems we should be there by now. Our flight was uneventful to BA.

Today was Christmas Eve which is a festive day for both of us. We both historically had big celebrations on Christmas Eve with our families so we wanted to try and be festive today. The domestic airport in BA was not very nice and had a food court for food. The best we found was pizza for lunch/dinner. It was good, but didn't fit the festiveness we were looking for. Oh well. We continue to be amazed at the lack of decorations for Christmas. After four hours, we had an uneventful flight to Mendoza.

We took a cab to our hotel in Mendoza and it was already dark outside. We stayed at the Park Hyatt for just about $100 a night here! It was finally nice to have a big hotel room with great wifi, so we could talk to our families on Christmas. We considered staying at a winery, but there were only a few availabilities and the cheapest I found was $300 a night. We also figured that the wifi might not be strong there and we wanted to be sure we could use skype on Christmas.

The hotel had a very popular wine bar in it, so we tasted a few different Malbecs before settling for bed about 1130. We did get to talk to Kristen's mom for some time just before bed. Kristen was excited to see her mom and dog (using FaceTime) as she misses them both.

Day 58 - Christmas in Mendoza

We slept in without an alarm this morning. We had plenty to do, but no timeline. The city was shut down as it was Christmas, so we planned on spending the day in the hotel. We started with a nice workout at the gym. It had great wifi, so I was able to load a ton of YouTube videos while cycling. Kristen spent about 1.5 hours on the elliptical. I swear no one on earth smiles so much while working out.

After working out we made multiple skype calls to our family. It was really nice to be able to speak to everyone. The video feed wasn't always the best, so we had to switch to audio only.

The hotel had a special Christmas brunch from 1-4 which we was phenomenal. They had the whole area decorated for Christmas which made us feel festive. We only had a snack up to this point and had worked out so we were starving. The buffet brunch came with all you could eat and drink. This brunch was the best overall dining experience thus far on our trip. Having multiple glasses of Malbec surely helped, but we really took our time trying all sorts of food and chatting about the past year and the year ahead of us. We really had a great connection during the meal and I think we actually slowly ate our food enjoying each different food we tried. We ultimately spent the entire three hours trying every possible wine, appetizer, meat, veggie, cheese, and dessert. They even made Kristen her own vegetarian pasta. This was one heck of a Christmas feast and we didn't have to cook or clean a thing. That may actually play a part in its enjoyment. If this experience is in Portland, I think we would actually consider making it a tradition. There is something to be said for not having to worry about any food prep or clean up. We got to just sit down and enjoy each other's company!

We had decided not to give each other gifts this year, since we are so fortunate to be on this journey together. We celebrated by reflecting on past travel blogs and our experiences we had together. We both really appreciate experiences over gifts and this year provided amazing experiences for us. Despite no gift giving, the actual day still felt festive for us. Having the time to reflect with each other was the best gift we could give each other.

After such an amazing dining experience, we decided to walk a bit around town. We killed about an hour walking around the five main squares in town. The interesting thing is that they are spaced exactly like the five on a dice and we were staying across the street in the center. We wanted to experience Christmas Mass in another country, so we found a service at 7:00 in a near by Catholic Church.

What a great experience. This was the third service offered at the parish and maybe had 30 people there. We had many observations:

1. The inside looked exactly like an older church in the US. No AC, which was a bit brutal since it was 95 degrees outside.
2. The parish members are tough as nails as the pews and kneeling bench was made of hard wood. And I mean hard wood, no padding.
3. I felt lost like usual in the message as it was all in Spanish. However, I always knew which part of mass we were in just by observing everyone. I found this very intriguing. Despite not knowing the actual words, I knew exactly which reading, homily, etc we were on.
4. There were no frills at this mass. We were out the door within 35 minutes. No one walked down the isle. There were no alter boys. No one brought the gifts up the alter. When it came time for the offering, no one walked around the church. They simply put two baskets at the front and people who wanted to give walked at once. Same at communion, everyone just formed a line. Communion was over within 60 seconds, but it didn't feel rush. It felt as if we were there for a message not for a ceremony.
5. Instead of shaking hands at the offering of the peace, you gave a kiss on the check to your neighbor. We only had two since it wasn't packed. At the end of it all, I kissed an old lady, but shook my wife's hand.

We walked home after church in the sprinkles as the rain was approaching. We went to bed at 1000 as we had a full day of wine tasting in the morning.

Day 59 - Wine tour in Mendoza

We had a quick breakfast this morning as we had booked a day of wine tasting with Trout and Wine. This came very highly regarded, yet we still had more fun that we expected.

We were picked up by Andrea our tour guide for the day. We had two Canadians from Montreal, a couple from Seattle, and a couple from Laguna Beach, California. All nine of us fit comfortably in their van. We were scheduled to taste at four wineries from 8-5.

Our first stop was Alto Vista, an old Spanish winery that was failing before a French man bought and overhauled the winery in 1997. This winery was the best winery for learning how they make wine.

We first toured the Reception room where they select grapes from a conveyor belt and remove the leaves and stems. Second, they manually remove the "bad grapes," which are sent back to the winery for fertilizer.

Next the grapes are sent to a tank for maturation where they are cooled down before being heated to 27 C to turn fruit juice to alcohol. This fermentation is done in concrete tanks vs stainless steel in US. The concrete supposedly maintains a constant temperature.

Some factoids about Alta Vista:

• Their high end wine is called Alto, which is made of 80% Malbec. 20% cab Sauvignon.
• They harvest between March and May. Then 40 -50 days for fermentation.
• They have a lab with both wine makers and chemists. It is science vs taste. They work together to come up with each batch of wine. The two winemakers are French and Argentina, so they blend their palates to make Alta Vista wine.
• The cellar is kept at a natural temperature of 12 degrees Celsius.
• They use French Oak Barrels. They only use them four times.
• Depending on the wine, it sits in the barrel for 6-18 months: shorter creates more fruity. Longer for heavier more deep flavors.
• Winemaker tastes each barrel once a week until they are happy.
• Oxygenation happens in bottle. They keep Alto for 18 months in the bottle before selling.
• Malbec grape is originally from France
• When tasting wine, only rinse glasses with water between white and reds. Not between same colors.
• Alto. 10000 bottles per year. Not for pairing. Only for tasting. Maybe with dark chocolate
• Argentina deploys hail bombs to break hail clouds which help protect the regions grapes from hail damage.
• They recommend storing wine at 18 C (64 F). One hour before drinking put in vegetable drawer in refrigerator. Open it at room temperature 30 min before drinking to let it breath.

We went to three other wineries. It appears that as I drank more wine, the less notes I took. Our second stop was at Vino Cabos, an American owned winery. Contrary to the first winery, this was a very new winery that used all new equipment and methods, very high tech. Touring it was unromantic and felt much more like a scientific process. Everything was stainless steel. Unlike the US, they give very generous pours during tasting. We tasted four wines here. It was our least favorite for the four.

The third winery we visited was for lunch and tasting, Decero, a Swiss owned winery. The landscape, food, and wine here was amazing. We had an absolute blast here. We had six wines to sample which were about half glasses, not sample size. We would barely finished one sample and they refilled it. It felt more like an all you can drink tasting vs sampling. But no complaining here. I loved the food so much here that Kristen still makes fun of me on how I described the meat loaf like hamburger. I might have had a few bottles of wine at this point and was feeling pretty good. In fact, I am pretty sure my teeth still have a tent of purple from this day of tasting. We didn't actually tour the winery here, but sat in their restaurant and balcony taking in their views.

Our final stop was at Clos de Chacras, an Argentinian owned winery. This winery was much more old school with cement cellars and storage tanks. It was painted pink on the outside which definitely made it feel Argentinian. We got to sit outside and taste here. We were all having soo much fun at this point that no one wanted it to end. I have no idea if this winery has good wine, as anything would have tasted good.

We were dropped off at our hotel a little past five. We thankfully went for a walk around town and eventually had dinner: breaded meat and mashed potatoes for me and a soy patty with mozzarella cheese, basil and tomatoes for Kristen. The food wasn't very good, but was much needed.

After about 1.5 hours of being about, we made our way back to the hotel where we called it an early night.

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