Mendoza, malbec, microbreweries

Mendoza is a great city, tied with Bariloche as our favorite city (not counting towns) so far. One of the great international wine cities, beautiful weather, enormous parks, not very touristy, and great food. Top-notch hostel (Lao Hostel) with 2 rescue dogs. All we did was eat, drink, and go to parks, and I wouldn't have done it any other way.

Highlight was a bike tour at wineries in the satellite town of Lujan, a less touristy alternative to Maipú. Sorry no pictures right now, they're all on the nice camera. Mendoza is famous for Malbecs, but they also grow a white varietal here (well, mostly in Salta in the north) called torrontés. We'd never heard of it before, and even though we normally prefer reds we really liked it. Will have to look for it in the states.

The winery staff in the smaller vineyards were extremely welcoming. The owner of Pulmary took us into the cellars and gave us a vertical tasting of the whole process. He explained that even though wine is so popular in Argentina, all the wine tourists are international. There's no domestic wine tour culture.

We made friends with Carla, our guide at Alta Vista, as well as the owner of Carmelo Patti, who let us in even though we'd been told the wrong opening hours and it was already closed. I wasn't going to buy any bottles because of limited suitcase space, but couldn't help splurging on two very nice bottles which aren't exported. If only shipping and customs weren't so expensive I would have done some major damage. Luckily most of these vineyards export to the US. Sorry Saul, we didn't make it to your recommendations because they were too far out!

We also spent 2 days exploring Parque General San Martin, an enormous park with 50,000 trees, a stadium, zoo, mirador, lakes, museums, regatta club, science center, amphitheater, pretty much everything you could want and full of exercising locals at all hours. Walk all day, then hit the microbreweries and restaurants at night. Top microbrewery of the trip so far is still Manush in Bariloche, but I'm diligently trying all the competition.

Now on a bus north to Salta!

-Peter