The next city we visit, or rather the next region, is Mendoza in Argentina. On the one hand, it is one of the most modern cities in Argentina and, on the other, a young yet high-quality wine region. An exciting mix of city and countryside. In this blog post, we bring you a little closer to the Mendoza wine region.

Mendoza – the city

Our stop in Mendoza, the city itself, is characterized by coziness. We find a pleasantly shady campsite about 5 km outside the city center and can therefore relax perfectly. The last few days have been characterized by many kilometers of driving, so a break comes in handy. From the campsite, we take a leisurely cab or bus ride into the city center to discover Mendoza for ourselves. We quickly realize: Mendoza is a city to live in. Lots of cozy cafés, restaurants and a distinct nightlife district in the Arístides quarter. Other places of interest include the town hall terrace, which has recently been closed due to an accident, and the large General San Martin Park.
The city is extremely tidy for a South American city. Little litter on the streets, tree-lined avenues in the middle of the city center and plenty of space for pedestrians. Really progressive! Accordingly, we feel very comfortable and welcome on our tours through Mendoza. As we have already outlined our program, we don’t do much in Mendoza apart from walking and stopping for refreshments. That will have to suffice for the travel report from the city. The only thing is that we like it so much that we imagine hypothetically what it would be like to buy a townhouse here and live in Mendoza for a few years. But don’t worry, it’s just a mind game without a solid background.

Mendoza – the wine region

First things first: Mendoza as a wine region is probably one of the youngest wine regions in the world. Around 30 years ago, the three valleys of Uco, Maipú and Luján de Cuyo were still inhospitable scree fields. At the end of the 1990s, vines were gradually planted, accompanied by large irrigation systems, so that the less fertile, stony soil could be turned into an idyll for vines and olive trees. Many of the winegrowers we visit have a history dating back less than 30, sometimes less than 20 years. The wine production technologies are correspondingly modern. Everywhere we find new buildings with stainless steel, concrete and clay tanks. Modernity combined with good marketing results in the perfect mix to establish Mendoza as an important wine region on the world market within this short time. And not only on the world market, within Argentina Mendoza is now the largest wine-growing region.

Visits to various wineries

To actually taste and get to know the wines and the Mendoza wine region, we visit various wineries over several days. Fortunately, we start with a small winery and afterwards slowly work our way up to the larger and more exclusive wineries. At Cavieres in the Maipú region, we spend the night at a winery for the first time and try the Malbec that goes with it. It tastes excellent, but the selection is not enough for a wine tasting, as Cavieres produces exactly one Malbec. However, it remains the best Malbec we find on our tour of Mendoza.
Our tailor-made wine tasting continues further south in the Uco Valley. We visit Claroscuro, Piedra Negra, Solocontigo, Salentein and Adelma in turn. This gives us a wide choice of boutique wineries to visit as well as a giant with Salentein and many different sizes of wineries in between. Of course, we drink at least one glass at each winery so that we can compare the different tastes. In terms of ambience, we liked Solocontigo best, closely followed by Claroscuro. And Cavieres and Adelma were the most convincing wines.

We tended to skip the guided tasting tours through the wineries and in many cases tasted the wine ourselves by the glass. We quickly realized that the wineries here all have a very similar history and use very similar production methods. Accordingly, we visited the wineries ourselves – many of them were beautiful – and tasted the corresponding wine directly, without investing too much in a tour that would just repeat the same information over and over again.

We really enjoy our days at the wineries. Driving through seemingly endless vineyards, coupled with extensive stops at the wineries to visit the storage rooms, look at the different wines and taste the most suitable wines in the wineries’ beautiful gardens. And as it is well known that drinking wine is more fun in a larger group, we go on our sightseeing tour with two pairs of friends. Sometimes there are four of us and sometimes six, which is also a nice change.
The five days in the Mendoza wine region fly by. Before we can no longer tear ourselves away, we decide to draw a line under our tasting tour and drive on towards Chile.