Cactus y Caballos – Mendoza Día 6

“Don’t touch the cactus Alfie”

We started the day at Bodege Vistabla which is a beautiful winery with an impressive 5m deep subterranean cave where they not only store their wines but where we also tasted them. A sparkling brut was first up and it was a rude awakening to my palate – I’d not had breakfast for 1, and 2 I not a huge fan of brut sparkling wines anyway. This one had a lot of acid and not a great deal of sweetness. We need to move on and fast, luckily there was a Semillon next up that soothed my palate and brought it back to life. A single vineyard Syrah (Shiraz) followed and ware very good – they always serve wine colder here (14C) as they think that their weather will warm it to the perfect 18C temp, but down in this wine cave it doesn’t. I heat it up in my hands and it begins to open up and come to life – this the best wine of the tasting. Their 2018 Corte B Malbec receives the same treatment and it’s nice, but not great when compared to others I’ve tried this trip. We take a few happy snaps in their vineyards with the picturesque Andes backdrop and head to our friend Vale’s family vineyard for a quick look before lunch.

We were here before this finca & bodega became super famous everyone!

Vamos a Fogon restaurante en Bodega Lagarde. The only one that has eaten this morning is Alfie so we are all a bit peckish…we arrive 1/2hr before the restaurant is open, bummer. We hang out in their courtyard which is next to their winemaking factory. Alfie finds some jenga blocks to play with and surprisingly he is now actually building towers by himself. Caro helps him and then the usual Alfie returns and smashes them down. Both Agus and I have pointed out over the last few days that cactuses are spiky and that Alfie shouldn’t touch them. We tell him this again as there are a-lot around this winery and also in pots in the courtyard. We turn our back for 2 seconds and what does he do…he grabs one of the small cactus and now his thumb and forefinger are covered in tiny spines. He’s obviously in pain and clenching his fist only makes it worse. Agus manages to find a lady in the restaurant that has some tweezers and proceeds the lengthy process of pulling all of the spines from his fingers. This is pretty painful for him, poor little guy, but she manages to get most out and we apply Caladryl to help with the pain (this is what they use over here for mossie bites – this is another blog topic to look out for). We now head in to the restaurant and immediately order some ice-cream for Alfie and this stems the flow of tears immediately.

Lunch at Fogón, Cocina de Viñedo

The restaurant has been voted #4 best elegant restaurants in South America in 2021 by TripAdvisor and on entry it’s not hard to see why. It takes a bit of time for us to soak in the surrounds (as we’re still attending to Alfie), but being seated under huge fig trees at a long table looking into their vineyards makes for serene & relaxing place for lunch. Vale’s daughter Sofi’s best friend Violeta’s family own the vineyard so she has organised for us to taste two of their Proyecto Hermanas (sisters project) wines with lunch which is a very nice gesture. I choose the Sauvignon Blanc and the Cab. Franc & Malbec blend – both were excellent wines that would happily find a home in my private cellar. I also ordered their single vineyard Primeras Viñas 2019 Malbec – this was a Lujan de Cuyo Malbec made from vines planted in 1906 and 1930 and it was excellent! The foods as well was excellent, burrata with fresh tomatoes, figs and a gazpacho dressing followed by matambrito de cerdo was yum. We skipped desert as we needed to go home for a rest as we had a big night activity planned…but not before Alfie tried to start up the forklift.

Dinner Gaucho Style

Vale has organised a night out for us on horseback with some local gauchos. Their place is a bit hard to find so we follow her off the highway and through some of Mendoza’s smaller side streets, under a bridge that is being repaired (a 10m deep hole is on one side of us) and I think that we are actually going through a water spillway as we descend a very rocky road. It could be that this is a temporary road diversion…but I never know in Argentina, this could just be an actually road. Anyway, we make a couple of turns and at the dead-end is the gaucho’s stable. We are greeted by César and Lucas, thier dogs Oso and Indio and our steeds for the night. Alfie was super excited and wanted to know if Sofi (Millan) was coming to ride the horse with him – last time he was on one was with her at the Millan’s farm in Benquerencia. We were paired with our caballos, being a gringo I was given a short tour of the horse – foot goes here, reins to the left horse goes left, opposite for right, pull them back the horse stops. Alfie is riding with Agus and they follow César out onto the trail, the rest of us follow…well the horses instinctively follow as they have no doubt done this many times. We’re quickly into the scrub and I am surprised to see that we are crossing a stream. Mendoza is extremely dry, I’ve yet to see a river or a creek here flowing with water. The other day at Riccitelli they were telling us that the central Mendoza government sent up bombs into the clouds to make it rain…and they miscalculated the volume of moisture in the clouds so they got a year and a half worth of rain in a day.

We are going up and down some pretty steep hills now as we get further away from the lights of suburbia and I am impressed at how my horse navigates them (especially with my near 100kg extra load). We pass another group of gauchos cooking an asado, see a large house sitting perched in the middle of nowhere (apparently a politicians) and then after about 45mins we left Lucas to prepare dinner and rode on for about another 45mins – 1hr. It was just on dark as we arrived back to where Lucas had setup up camp, a modest fire was lit and there was meat cooking over the coals. We saw a couple of cows on our way back I was wondering if he had freshly prepared it for us…we were in the wild. César tied up our horses in their designated parking spots, they knew what was coming and pretty much walked there on their own, Lucas pops the cork out of our first wine and hands around some salami. This is a good appetizer, but we’re all more interested in what’s cooking on the coals – the smell is amazing. We warn Alfie that the fire is hot as are the rocks around it, but he is very hyped up now after riding the horse and needs to burn off the excess energy he has bottled up. He knocks Santi’s wine into his crotch after he’s caught off guard by one of his kamikaze run and jump outbursts.

The meat is ready, we’re told to grab a small bread roll and head to the fire where they are carving it off the long wood skewers. From what I can tell there are 3 cuts of meat, this first one is entraña and it is amazing. Alfie has almost finished his piece (and bread roll) and announces it was delicious – he’s not wrong, it was bloody good. We all keen for more, including Alfie who announced loudly “more meat” to kick off round 2. Costillitas (small ribs) are next and they are on point, I probably had 2, maybe 3. Then came the final cut, picaña. Nothing but good cow and salt and the flavour spoke for itself (maybe the local wood it was cooked with added something as well). So gaucho asado is approved in my book.

We pack up camp at about 10pm and mount our horses ready to head back. Alfie is super excited again, but proves that he is very much like his tío Pato and falls asleep in Agus’ arms 5-10mins into the trip. It’s a moonlight night, not a full moon, but it’s light enough that we can see our way back. I’ve got faith that my horse will guide me back, but we have a chat before we set off about not steering me into too many of the thorny bushes this trip. It was very serene to be out of the city lights and able to see the stars and hear the sounds of nature. Plus it was actually fun to be crossing streams and traversing some tricky rocky uphill and downhill trail sections on horseback at night. We get back to the stables around 10:45pm, say goodbye to our horses and the gauchos, load up the car & buckle the still asleep Alfie into his car seat and head home.