Warning – if you’re not interested in wine or steak you may prefer to skip this. However it may change your mind about either or both!

Less than 150 miles as the crow flies across the Andes, Mendoza was our obvious entry point into Argentina. Steve really fancied making the journey by bus, especially as it was a spectacular mountain route and one of the lowest altitude passes, but in Winter it is rather risky as the pass may be closed by ice/snow. We couldn’t risk getting stuck at 3,000m+ and couldn’t find a contingency flight that worked with the bus timetable, so a quick (but stupidly expensive for the distance) hop with LATAM was booked.

We allowed ourselves a decent amount of time in Mendoza – there was a lot of Malbec and steak to be sampled, we had enough time to treat ourselves to a few days of rest and relaxation, so booked 6 nights at an Airbnb in the city centre. It would be nice to be able to cook for ourselves, do our laundry, wake late without worrying about housekeeping, and slob in front of the TV drinking wine and watching football. The apartment was small but well located, and amazingly equipped – you have to love a gay guy’s attention to detail – a wine fridge stocked with 8 different bottles of wine (at reasonable prices), a professional corkscrew set, shaped memory foam pillows, luxury toiletries, mouthwash, makeup remover and even decent hair straighteners and curling tongs! Argentina has fabulous food but we were craving a roast dinner and a spag bol so they were the priority to cook – the latter was easy but the roast was a tad trickier – no chance of finding horseradish, English mustard or parsnips, and the ‘cheese sauce’ for the cauliflower and the ‘gravy’ powder were disastrous purchases. Unsurprisingly, the beef joint was pretty good though.

Asado

Talking of beef, it is an Argentinian passion and the Asado (traditional BBQ) is almost a religion. A typical meal allows 500g of meat per person and Argentinians eat over 90Kg of meat per year – wow, that wine must help clear their arteries! As we like to take cooking classes on our travels we decided to indulge in an Asado cooking class with Mauricio – held at his home in an exclusive gated development overlooking the city. Mauricio had lost the use of an arm in a motorcycle accident when he was 19, but that didn’t stop him opening and running a grill restaurant for many years before starting the first home-hosted Asado ‘experience’ in Mendoza over 10 years ago. It was wonderful to learn that he ploughs all the profits back into travel for his family, and although he was more expensive than his competitors, we felt happy about supporting such a worthwhile cause so close to our own ideals! We initially thought it odd that Mauricio offered just one-way transport and picked us up from our apartment, but we soon realised that the reason you need to take an Uber back is that he cooks with you and drinks with you, and he’s rather generous with the Malbec!

We learned about the Asado – almost every home has one and apparently those that don’t should be treated with suspicion as they are obviously ‘aliens’, it is something not to be rushed, the correct etiquette is to arrive in time for the lighting of the fire but to never comment or offer suggestions on the cooking, and never dare to touch it. We’d say that the Argentinians are far more precious about their BBQ than us Brits!!

We helped prepare the logs – in Mendoza all Asado use wood, but in Buenos Aires they use more charcoal – and light the fire using newspaper and kindling. Then we threw in onions to roast in the heart of the fire and paced peppers on top to char, While the logs were burning down to coals we prepared chimichurri – lots of parsley, garlic, oregano and thyme – and vegetables for the Asado. And once the coals were ready we learned about the different heat zones and put a huge rib of beef on the cooler zone to cook slowly, and sausages and blood sausage on a higher heat. Then the Malbec was opened, we had some charcuterie for a starter, then some delicious home baked empanadas. A basket of separately burning logs is kept by the side of the grill to maintain a constant supply of coals – it is very intense and precise! The sausages were placed into crusty bread, topped with chimichurri and voila – we had churipan, the Argentinian staple street food. Adding more coals to turn up the heat, the beef ribs were finished off, and the ribeye went on the grill for fast cooking. Somewhere in all of this we retrieved the charred veg to make a delicious smoked veggie salad. And the meat? Out of this world! We were embarrassed by how little we actually ate, but think that Mauricio had been generous in his purchasing. We’d already had 2 bottles of wine when we ordered the Uber, and Mauricio was disappointed that it was coming so quickly as he was about to open the 3rd. We suspect that he opened it anyway – cheers Mauricio, and thanks for a fabulous afternoon!

Wine

On our first afternoon in Mendoza we’d found that all the shops were shut and later learned that this was due to the sacred siesta – pretty much everything except restaurants stops between 13.30 and 17.00 – how civilised. So we were forced to join people sitting in pavement restaurants and acquaint ourselves with the local vino. Even with the restaurant’s 70-80% mark up we had a really good bottle of Malbec for £11, and could’ve got a bottle for less than half that price. Bingo!

And then to one of the wine shops nearby that had 2 floors of Mendoza’s best. We had a couple of recommendations but opted to not to go ridiculously expensive so opted for an Angelica Zapata 2022 Malbec – and then it was 35% off to celebrate Argentina’s upcoming World Cup match so ‘only’ around £13.50 for a bottle that’d cost at least £50 at home.

Purchasing REALLY good wine was great value in Mendoza but we were pretty shocked at the price of wine tours. Almost anywhere else in the world, tasting is free, or a nominal charge refundable against a purchase and only for really expensive wines is there a significant fee. Not in Mendoza! So that makes the tours expensive too. Debbie costed up trying to do it ourselves on the wine bus or using Uber, and the difference vs a tour was negligible, so she convinced Steve that we should splurge on one really decent tour, found Trout & Wine on Tripadvisor and negotiated the best rate with them directly. As it turned out, no-one else was booked and so we got a private tour for the price of a small group tour – they can’t have made any profit from us that day but great that they still provided the service.

Lujan de Cuyo Tour

We opted for the historic heartland of Argentine Malbec, around 30 minutes south of Mendoza city, for our tour. Ideally we’d have also visited the Uco Valley 2 hours away, but at well over £300/day we couldn’t justify both and (1) Trout and Wine recommended Lujan if you could only do one and (2) many wineries have vineyards in both regions so we’d get to taste Uco wines anyway.

We were picked up from our apartment at 09.00, having the luxury of both a driver and a guide, it was still freezing cold when we arrived at our first winery Bodegas Benegas Lynch before 09.30. We’d be warned that the exterior of this place would have us thinking ‘why the hell have you brought us here?’, and it did – a VERY plain adobe exterior but what was inside was truly amazing. Firstly the great hall, a spectacular room used by the family for entertaining and which housed the biggest sofas we’ve ever seen and a huge indoor Asado – apparently there had been an important dinner the evening before, and this would be an amazing wedding reception venue. We toured through the winery, it was fascinating to see how the wine was transported through holes in the wall/floor down to the cellar, passing through the old concrete vats now used as wine cellars to a tasting room inside one of these vats. The wines were lovely, and the tour exceptional, but we decided that (to us) they weren’t worth the per bottle price of £60+ for the decent stuff. We suspect that our guide probably thought we were cheapskates when we didn’t purchase anything.

Next was another small family-run, but totally different, winery Familia Cassone, spectacularly located with the snow-capped Andes as a backdrop. We learned about the arid Mendoza climate and the irrigation provided by canals owned by the population, rather than utility companies, the bomb-shaped vats, the stress that the vines are subjected to, and marvelled at the world map made from corks (we must make one for home), before sampling some great wines. The quality ranking was obvious – we had no idea of the price but much preferred the Obra Prima reserve blend to the highest priced Collection Malbec Grand Reserva. It turned out that the wines were far more reasonably priced that those at Benegas, so a bottle of the blend came with us. Our guide will have now been absolutely convinced that we were cheapskates! In our defence, we will only buy what we like and it was still more expensive than we’d routinely purchase at home.

Lunch was next, and a substitution from the advertised vineyard restaurant. We think that the food gods were smiling down on us that day when our reservation was changed to the brand new food venture at Bodega Casarena – a beautiful modern restaurant with the most spectacular vineyard & Andes views and food/wine to die for. We enjoyed a 6 course tasting menu with wine pairing – absolutely beautiful and with the most delicious rib eye steaks that were so buttery and the nearest thing we’ve ever tasted to perfection bar the Wagyu in Japan. Steve contentedly declared that nice vineyard lunches might be ‘his thing’! We sampled the flagship wine but again preferred the grade lower and purchased a bottle of their single vineyard Jamilla Malbec 2022.

The final stop had a tough challenge given that we’d already sampled 17 wines, and they weren’t thimblefuls – a totally different, new and ultra modern winery Bodegas Budeguer. We liked their wines and opted to take a limited edition (one of only 3500 bottles) Petit Verdot, quite unusual as a single varietal.

So, a day of 21 wines and an amazing 6 course lunch – expensive but worth it – and our driver got us back in time for the England v Croatia match. Unbelievably, we opened one of the bottles to accompany the football!

Maipu

The nearest wine producing region to Mendoza and only 20 minutes from the city. We thought about taking the Wine Bus or a ‘cheap’ tour but instead decided take an Uber to visit the winery of a brand we knew – Trapiche – for lunch and a complimentary tour.

On our way there we thought ‘what the hell?’ as we were driven through industrial estates with car body shops etc. We have learned that South America’s wine regions aren’t particularly beautiful in the way many of the world’s others are, and its about the quality of wine rather than the picture postcard scenery, but that said individual wineries can have the most stunning settings.

Once inside the grounds of Trapiche, it was another world. A most impressive 19th century building, has been converted to a winemaking museum and “test kitchen” while two new buildings behind dedicated to red and white production are now producing over 20 million litres of wine annually. Their lesser quality stuff is available at UK supermarkets. Our free tour actually started with a glass of wine, and during a fascinating hour or so we visited the old winery and learned about the impressive history and somehow picked up another 4 glasses of wine on the way! The peacocks roamed around the tasting room and we got some great tips on Buenos Aires from our fellow tour guests.

Late for lunch we had to rush….

Another brilliant winery lunch with more excellent steak and fantastic paired wine, but rather expensive for Debbie as her tooth that had been holding on for dear life finally succumbed to a soft and buttery bread roll 🙁

But with a brave face she continued drinking wine and we finished our day tasting Trapiche’s best and deciding that we actually didn’t like the most expensive stuff and preferred the Terroir Series 2017 Malbec. So a bottle of that came back with us.

There’s no doubt that Mendoza is a stunning wine and food region, and we tasted some of the best of both here. Because we were staying for a good few days, an Airbnb in the city worked well. But this area is about the wine so for a shorter stay we’d definitely recommend a winery hotel for a more luxury/immersive experience.

Apparently it is allowed to take a case of wine as hand luggage on flights departing from Mendozas. We didn’t believe it so just risked one bottle. No, it’s true, and we were probably the only people on our flight not carrying a case of wine (but maybe that’s why the Aerolinas Arentinas check-in guy didn’t charge us for being over the ridiculous 15Kg that they allow on domestic flights – but then perhaps that’s why only 15Kg is allowed?!).

Next destination is rnot really on the mainstream tourist trail for those doing a quick Argentina visit – the north-western province of Salta…..