When in Mendoza, we spent a day visiting three wineries:

The day commenced at 11am.  It did seem early, but it was scheduled. This means the visit was pre-arranged with the winery, and ensures you are accommodated with their team – but more importantly you get past the security guy on the gate.  Once we got in the building (Vina Cobos) it was quite a large building a few years old, and we perused the tasting menu while while they cleared up after the previous group.  The tasting menu lists the various combinations of their different wineries, and the cost of the different tasting packages from 30 – 55+ $AG. We were talked through the region of the location of their vineyards and the affect of the terrior on their different wines.  At this point we were sat down and selected the wine tasting package.

The tasting serves was equal to a size your would pour yourself with dinner – which was still quite large. Thankfully we had a driver and we shared the one serve.  At the first winery we tried all Malbec variety of wines – we were in Argentina and this is their specialty.  They were good, but thankfully our ability to buy a number of bottles was restricted…as we weren’t going to pay an addition $US480 for a dozen to be sent home!  We decided to buy one bottle, and then headed to the next winery.

At Domino del Planta we received an explanation about their winery and then taken on a tour of the winery production area with another four tourists.  As we were walking among the vats, one of the openings on large vat of red wine burst open spraying wine all over the six tourists.  Thankfully we weren’t wearing white!  As part of the the plan for the day we had lunch here and as the guide was very embarrassed, provided us all a glass of their best wine… and it was truly great.  We didn’t buy a bottle as they had a supplier in Australia.  After lunch, we headed to Bressia winery.  Here we didn’t get a tour, but a limited overview of their wines.  The host had been with the company since April, and perhaps was the least skilled in providing us with an overview and selling points of the wine.  It also didn’t help we had completed lunch which included wine!

As if tasting wine all day wasn’t enough… early evening we also attended a wine tasting event where we were staying (Cavas Wine Lodge).  While Malbec is the most known grape variety of the country, you can also find a fabulous varietal called Torrentes.  This was delightful (read the wikipedia link for more info)  One of my ultimate finds this holiday was the variety of Torentes – this wine was truly outstanding.  I really wished we could buy a bottle… but I will have to be hopeful I can find an importer of this in Australia.

The day was certainly an interesting experience  – as it provided an interesting comparison to the Australian experience.  We need to be very thankful we can jump in car any day of the week and just rock-up to a winery, and try wines without paying, and getting past security on the gate.  We are truly fortunate.