Our Mendoza Whine Tour

No, that is not a typo.  Touring Argentine wine country was just not at the top of the list for #1, #2, or #3.  In one of the areas, Maipú (yes, it produces giggles when spoken out loud), the thing is to rent bikes and bicycle from vineyard to vineyard.  We heard that there were chocolate, liquor, and olive oil producers as well so the former was the focus rather than wine.  We rented bikes from one of many places on the main drag of town and after many adjustments were on our way to Bodega La Rural where they have a museum of wine processing.  We peeked in and the "whine tour" started. We didn't go on the wine tour we just looked at some of the artifacts in the museum.  I also, using a great poster, introduced the kids to some of the aromas found in wine.  This will be important later.

The really old stuff

The not so old stuff????

We continued onto a promised chocolate producer and were a bit disappointed in the atmosphere and selection so moved onto lunch at loosely a "Beer Garden" in a field between vineyards. We ate pizza and empanadas but tried not to drink too much for fear of falling off the bikes.

Renee learned about outliers this year in statistics.  Our group luckily contained outliers on both ends of the age spectrum so we cancelled out and the average age remained 26 at the Beer Garden.

We next tried to go to a tour at Trapiche, the label that we actually served at our wedding to add a bit of Argentina to the festivities.  The tours were all full because of the long weekend but I still wanted to move to a real wine tour but first we had to hit another chocolate place.  We landed at Historias y Sabores on the way back to the bike rental place (our backs and tushies were hurting by now from badly-fitted bikes).  This place offered chocolates, marmalades, and liquors.  They had a sampler that we chose and got a bit of a liquor, sugar, and chocolate fix.   Rob tried a dulce de leche con banana liquor and I had one with malbec and spices. It was also the only place we found with grapes still on the vines so we asked if we could try some and they picked us a bunch - yum.

We liked this guy's hat ;-)

Everybody we talked to suggested trying out Bodega Familia Di Tommaso to get a nice historical tour of a small winery.  We dropped off our bikes and headed there for a tasting and tour.  Both were a bit disappointing but I can't complain now about not going to a wine tour.   

To prove that they learned something from the day, the kids tasted the wine and made these observations:

The white tasted rocky with a hint of graphite.
The malbec - smoky with blueberry jam.
The cabernet sauvingon - oaky with blackberries and sweatshirt
The dessert wine - strawberry and leather

At least we got some good giggles in there.  All but the leather, jam and sweatshirt were actually on the aroma poster.

We watched a movie (with the hostel cat), made dinner at the hostel and passed out. 

Not sure what the pass will be like today so not sure if we'll continue touring or just start to head home.  Still waiting for the troops to wake up....