Día 4 en Mendoza

We’re off to two wineries today and we are also relocating to another house in Lujàn de Cuyo. Santi y Caro have taken their Jeep to a repairer in Mendoza (city) as our designated driver put a dent in the front quarter panned the other day at Pepper Tree vineyard. Agus, Alfie and I are waiting for them to return in chauffeured can we have hired. We put all of our bags in (and the wine we have acquired) and head off to our first vineyard of the day, Domaine Bousquet.

We’re greeted at the entry by a man with an eagle and Alfie wants to touch it (of course he does) but I explain it has talons and a sharp beak that can hurt him. He’s not too happy and I have to drag him away when the guy releases the eagle onto the ground. This is an organic winemaking operation so they use the eagle to chase off other birds that steal their crops. We head into the restaurant to find out when & where the tour and wine tasting is happening…Alfie kicks a little girl on the way out. We’re not off to a a great start here – after I apologies in my limited spanish (sori) I take Alfie over to the area his uncle has found under the trees and proceed to do some parenting. He’s angry (presumably because he couldn’t touch the eagle), I explain that it’s ok to be angry but not ok to hit or kick anyone. We move on and join the tour. Alfie gets bored of it pretty quickly, he doesn’t care about wine or how it is made so Agus takes him off to see the fish in their pond and the explore rest of the grounds. I’m actually pretty bored of hearing about how wine is made myself after-all I’ve been to heaps of vineyards before & hearing it in Spanish doesn’t make it anymore interesting. I’m just keen to try their wines and hear how each are made and what makes them different.

Eventually we make it to their cava (cave) for a degustation (tasting) after seeing some of their production facilities. My brother-in-law Santi has a people allergy so when they try to seat us in the small room, he requests we move to the bigger room with the longer table because of COVID. I am throughly underwhelmed with all of the wines they give us to taste, maybe the Semillon was the only one that offered up something different..but it wasn’t great. Our tour group then proceeded to speak a lot of fluff about the wines they have tasted with our tour guide come sommelier..even in Spanish I can detect shit being spoken and I tune out. I look around at Agus, she like Santi and Caro are wearing the same facial expression – we need to leave. The tour guide somehow gets a round of applause from the others on the tour…I don’t understand why. We take the elevator upstairs and make like trees and leave.

Lunch is at Bodega la Azul – one of my favourite places from my last visit to Mendoza 6 years ago. The place is packed, it somehow looks bigger than before but is still has a family vineyard feel. We are seated out the front under the grapevines (these have now enveloped the pergola) which help shade the sun, but also unfortunately now somewhat cut out the view of the property. Caro still makes the most of it for her Instagram – she has joined the myriad of social influencers that swarm the vineyards daily.

The menu is pretty simple – you get a choice of 2 plates per course with matching wines. You can upgrade the wine to their more premium line and also buy bottles of their more exclusive Reserve & Gran Reserve bottlings. The wine flows freely here, the matched wines they pour and leave the bottle, there is also a complementary glass of Sauv. Blanc to start. We order a bottle of their Grand Reserve Matilda Malbec as the wine I rated really highly last time (a Grand Reserve blend from 2013) is no longer made and we upgraded our matched main course wine to their Bonarda which was unfortunately not much chop. The food was good, but the serves were massive – check out the photos of the bondiola (pork loin) and rib eye steak below. The choripan was maybe the smallest thing served and potentially the most delicious.

It’s an hour drive to our AirBnB in Lujan de Cuyo and Alfie needs a nap – perfect, he will fall asleep in the van! Everyone did, except for Agus. The house has a pool and a big yard which is perfect for Alfie to run around in. We catch the end of the PSG vs. Real Madrid champion’s league second leg game – Madrid have staged a comeback and knocked PSG out..with all that talent in their side, it’s a shock. Money is seems still can’t buy you the UCL title (even with Messi) but it won’t stop heads rolling and replacements being brought in. Au revoir Pochettino…

Dinner is at home tonight, we’re too tired to go out anyway – good planning by Agus. It’s not an asado this time (apologies to my carnivore followers), rather Agus cooks up her world famous in Australia (and now Argentina) chicken fajitas. We hit the sack and get some shuteye – more wine exploring is planned for tomorrow.