Mendoza Madness!

Hola Amigos!
Since our Bolivian Bicycle and Salt adventures we have been able to recover in Menodaza Argentina and we can say that life is just wonderful again.  Mendoza is all about wine so you can be sure that we are fully maximizing our time here by visiting as many wineries as we can.  There are about 1200 wineries to see so the pressure is definitely on.  One guide worked it out to at least 3 per day for an entire year. We rented bikes (no not extreme Kona mountain bikes like Bolivia) and toodled around to see as many wineries as possible via bicyclette.  We did ok but ran out of steam after lunch which included a bottle of wine of course!

The views are spectacular and we are looking at Aconcagua Mountain which is a mere 6959 metres above sea level.  This is actually the highest peak in the western hemisphere and it is always in the distance here in Mendoza which is absolutley stunningly beautiful.  It is spring time here so all the blossoms are coming out.  The vineyards themselves are still "sleeping" as one tour guide put it but the scenery is just fantastic.

We had an amazing tour of Zuccardi vineyards and we really wish to thank the wonderful folks there for a simply super afternoon.  We got to visit the experimental wine room which includes neat varietals such as Tannat from Uruguay which I am standing beside.  This is now my new favourite wine and I would love to keep whatever is in this tank.  The city of Mendoza is just fantastic and it is really easy to get around.  We were able to try some of the yummy food including a typical Argentinian Parilla which includes all sorts of interesting meats and bits on the BBQ.

Here we have Gary with a real Asado or BBQ.  These guys take their meat very seriously and as you can see they go for the whole meal deal.  The sqaure right down the street from our hotel, the Plaza de Chile, was the site of the Chilean Festival of Independence Celebration and they BBQ'd meat like this for three days in a row.  There was traditional dancing at nighttime and of course more wine.  We had a lot of fun watching everything go down for the festival.

Here we are outside yet another winery that specialized in organic wines and we were able to taste primitive wine or wine that had not been filtered or treated in any way.  I must admit it tasted a lot like grape juice and I think my palatte has become used to the more commercialized traditional wines we all love so much.  Malbec is the wine of choice around here and we have done our best to sample as much as we can.  At 5 to 6 dollars for a good decent bottle it is really fun to sample all the different wines.

We have more stories to tell about our adventures but in the meantime we would like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving.  We will be missing our turkey but we will be sure to drink some wine that goes well with Turkey to celebrate.
Salud,
Pat and Gary