Vino! Vino! Vino...Oh My!

We have spent the majority of our time here in Mendoza learning about WINE! We joined up with other hostelers to do a full day bike tour of 3 local wineries and a chocolate/liquor maker, which was great fun! We had a guide that led the 12 of us on the country roads of Maipu, the closest small town of wineries. We went to small boutique organic wineries, and big wineries that produce over 20 different varieties...and we tasted some divine and some not so divine wines! :D It is not harvest time here now, (it is late January to early March) so all the vineyards are dry and brown but they are still very lovely. We have now learned the whole process, from picking the grapes, to separating the skinds and seeds, to fermenting the grape sugar to alcohol, to pressing and filtering, and then to aging some in oak barrels. Fun fact: one american oak barrel costs the wineries $500 US dollars to buy, and one french oak barrel costs $2000 dollars! ..."barrel" meaning where certain wines are aged 6 months to multiple years in order to add flavor and merge textures....making them more complex! haha Look at all my wine knowledge! Aren´t you impressed?! :D
This is the first winery we visited on our bike day...it was a small, family run winery that has been around since 1898. There big award winner is a Malbec (which we bought), it is Mendoza´s most famous variety of wine. The Malbec grape grows well here because it is very dry all year round, only 9mm of rain a year...there is also a very cold winter. All of which are ideal growing conditions...

This was at one of the BIG wineries that produces over 20 different varieties of wine, including sparkling wine. It is very commericalized though with tons of photo ops, one of which we took advantage of! :D

At the last winery, I won a bottle of wine because I found the oldest bottle of wine they had in their private collection...this is the one I am holding, it is a 1971 San Felipe. They won´t drink any of these wines ever, they are just to collect and show off. Seems a bit unfortunate to me, to waste all this delicious wine...but hey, that is just me! :D lol