We spent our final full day (non-travel related) doing one of the things we like to do. Taste wine.
We started Bodega Catena Zapata and this place can best be described visually as a crazy Napa winery down in Argentina. Wine in Argentina used to be table wine for the local market. This winery was the first to see what it could do against international competition. They were 20 years ahead of the Argentine market in doing this.
We arrived by driving up to the building that is a tribute to Mayan architecture in the shape of a pyramid. We started with a movie combined with another tour group of about 10-12 people. After the movie, Tatiana pulled us out for a personal tour likely the result of something Erik Segelbaum might have "arranged". So thanks!
Tatiana showed us the locked room with wines from all over the world that are stored there and sometimes opened to see how the wines made here stack up in relation. We also got to see an entire room of bottled wine that had been in barrel for a couple of years and was now spending a year or so in unlabeled bottles before being labeled and released to market.
We entered the barrel room for tasting, and the power went out. Fortunately German, our driver for the day, was hanging around like the paparazzi taking photos of our personal tour with two different cameras and used his cell phone to light our barrel tasting until the lights came back on. We tasted about 4 barrels and they were good to get a sense of what the winery is going for here.
We eventually ended in a nice room at a table and tasted 4 bottled wines - 3 for the export market and one available only in Argentina. This tour was a great way to start the day.
German then drove us over to Achaval Ferrer for our next tasting. This was started about 15 years ago by two friends. The winemaker is Italian which makes him different from basically all the other wineries in Mendoza. The wines are almost all Malbec (they have zero white wines) and basically some blend in a small percentage of other grapes. The goal of this winery is all high end and no second wines like a lot of wineries do all over the world.
That being said, half of their production is what they consider their table wine and likely mostly available in Argentina. We didn't taste that one, we tasted 4 other bottles plus a barrel sample and a sweet wine. The first wine we tasted was Quimera which is rare in that the winemaker co-ferments several grapes and selects the "blend" by tasting the grapes before they ferment. There is no going back once combined.
We then tasted 3 different Finca wines. Each of these come from different vineyards (or "plots"/"ranches") and are meant to show the sense of place for each area in Medoza that they come from. They are all 100% malbec and they were all good although I think we both settled on Finca Bella Vista as our slight favorite.
The final dry wine is a blend of the best 3 barrels from all 3 fincas called Temporis. So production is limited and they do not open them to taste but do allow visitors to buy them. We happened to show up mere days before they will be bottling the 2013 version and they allow sampling from the barrel in the 2 weeks prior to bottling so we sampled this and it was good. We didn't buy any. We went back to the tasting table we were sitting around and tasted a nice dessert Malbec.
We were with a group of 6 other tasters on this tour. One couple was from Austin and the guy threw in some pretty humorous stuff. He called Austin "the blueberry in the middle of a strawberry pie." This caused some laughter between us and another couple from the San Fran area. Somehow the group soon got on the topic of rednecks and he belted out: "our rednecks make YOUR necks red."
On to Siete...
We then drove out to Siete Fuegos for lunch. This place was *remote* but quite beautiful. It is in Uco Valley and is a new resort at a winery with seven different ways to fire up food including burying in a pit and covering with dirt, huge ring of fire to hang meat on, a pizza oven that has been burning fuel constantly since they opened, and several others. This place is gorgeous but *very* expensive to stay there and so remote you'd need to rent a car or get a driver to do anything unless you want to just hang solely at the resort. We tasted some decent wines here and had a wonderful lunch and tour of the fires.
We were driven back into Mendoza which allowed us to pack things up for a big 24+ hours of travel and sightseeing on the way back home.
For dinner, we went to Siete Cocinas just a short walk from the hotel. The restaurant showcases the best of each of the seven regions of Argentina. I was so tired of meat by this point, that I actually had a vegetarian soup followed by a vegetarian pasta dish and both of these were excellent. We ended up ordering a malbec from Patagonia which was different. And of course I ended with some chocolate...
We started Bodega Catena Zapata and this place can best be described visually as a crazy Napa winery down in Argentina. Wine in Argentina used to be table wine for the local market. This winery was the first to see what it could do against international competition. They were 20 years ahead of the Argentine market in doing this.
Tatiana showed us the locked room with wines from all over the world that are stored there and sometimes opened to see how the wines made here stack up in relation. We also got to see an entire room of bottled wine that had been in barrel for a couple of years and was now spending a year or so in unlabeled bottles before being labeled and released to market.
German then drove us over to Achaval Ferrer for our next tasting. This was started about 15 years ago by two friends. The winemaker is Italian which makes him different from basically all the other wineries in Mendoza. The wines are almost all Malbec (they have zero white wines) and basically some blend in a small percentage of other grapes. The goal of this winery is all high end and no second wines like a lot of wineries do all over the world.
We then tasted 3 different Finca wines. Each of these come from different vineyards (or "plots"/"ranches") and are meant to show the sense of place for each area in Medoza that they come from. They are all 100% malbec and they were all good although I think we both settled on Finca Bella Vista as our slight favorite.
The final dry wine is a blend of the best 3 barrels from all 3 fincas called Temporis. So production is limited and they do not open them to taste but do allow visitors to buy them. We happened to show up mere days before they will be bottling the 2013 version and they allow sampling from the barrel in the 2 weeks prior to bottling so we sampled this and it was good. We didn't buy any. We went back to the tasting table we were sitting around and tasted a nice dessert Malbec.
We were with a group of 6 other tasters on this tour. One couple was from Austin and the guy threw in some pretty humorous stuff. He called Austin "the blueberry in the middle of a strawberry pie." This caused some laughter between us and another couple from the San Fran area. Somehow the group soon got on the topic of rednecks and he belted out: "our rednecks make YOUR necks red."
On to Siete...
We then drove out to Siete Fuegos for lunch. This place was *remote* but quite beautiful. It is in Uco Valley and is a new resort at a winery with seven different ways to fire up food including burying in a pit and covering with dirt, huge ring of fire to hang meat on, a pizza oven that has been burning fuel constantly since they opened, and several others. This place is gorgeous but *very* expensive to stay there and so remote you'd need to rent a car or get a driver to do anything unless you want to just hang solely at the resort. We tasted some decent wines here and had a wonderful lunch and tour of the fires.
For dinner, we went to Siete Cocinas just a short walk from the hotel. The restaurant showcases the best of each of the seven regions of Argentina. I was so tired of meat by this point, that I actually had a vegetarian soup followed by a vegetarian pasta dish and both of these were excellent. We ended up ordering a malbec from Patagonia which was different. And of course I ended with some chocolate...
