What a delicious day!!!

Why is visiting bodegas and trying wines so exhausting???

Yesterday we visited 3 bodegas with wine tastings and crashed Achaval Ferrer’s tasting room for our “picnic” lunch. 

Catena Zapata
The gang at Catena Zapata

 

We have hired Walter and his 15 person van to take the 8 of us around for these 3 days.  So yesterday we visited the Lujan de Cuyo region – we visited Catena Zapata, Achaval Ferrer, and Alta Vista.  We missed seeing Carmelo Patti and visited him today.

 

Each winery has its own unique aspects.  I think similar to tango it’s good to experience many wineries – many milongas – to know that there is not 1 way to do things but many as there are people and ideas. 

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Here we are at Achaval Ferrer in their lovely tasting room.  After we had our tasting a few of us bought their lovely Dulce – a sweet wine of malbec grapes.  Then we asked if we could stay and each some lunch.  We all brought some bread, cheese, ham, salami, etc and we had a bottle to share – we had a lovely lunch!

 

 

We missed Carmelo Patti even though we had made an appointment with him so we continued on our merry way to Alta Vista.  We had to wait a bit for our tour so we enjoyed the surroundings of the interesting birds hanging out, and the little critters that look like guinea pigs but are a rabbit of sorts!!! and the lovely lavender.

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Today we visited Carmelo Patti.  And I enjoy visiting him so much.  His methods are very different than the other places we visit and we can a real personal approach to the wine making industry.  I think we all managed to buy a bottle from him.  I don’t remember what i bought last year but this year I am coming home with a signed bottle of 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon.  YEAH!!!  He is a big fan of letting the wines age and then he is a big fan of letting wine decant – breathe!!!   If you’re going to take the time to dress or to cook a lovely meal then the wine should have time to do the same – breathe!   

THEN we went to our lunch with wine pairings.  We had scheduled to visit Ruca Malen, which is the same place that we had enjoyed a lunch last year BUT at the nth our last night our reservation was canceled due to a large group of journalists who would be attending.  SO Rommel had them suggest and help us with our reservation at Melipal.  What a lovely afternoon!!!!

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Check out all those glasses!!!!!  Each course was accompanied by a wine from their winery.  We discovered that the Chef here is the same at Ruca Malen. We were in good hands!  They were accommodating to my veggie / no lacto needs and I think everyone enjoyed their meal.  We took about 3 hours to consume with pleasure!!!

 

 

 

The Chef is Florencia and the sommelier who helped in the wine pairings was also a woman.  This was refreshing to discover!!!  Ryan, Rommel and I had been to Ruca Malen last year and had enjoyed the food but not so much the wine. This lunch we all agreed that the food and the wine were both quite delicious!  We also managed to dance a tango in their hall on our way out! 

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AND THEN!  Why Ryan and Joey decided to run a sprint across their lawn is beyond my understanding but they did…

 

 

 

 

 

 

So Melipal was a success!!!  We made it back to our Mendoza home all content and a little tipsy!

 

Tonite we have a local milonga to attend.  We attended last year and thought it would be fun to revisit this year. 

Ryan brought the latest in apple technology on this trip – his IPad and we have been lucky enough to enjoy several games of scrabble on it!!!  And I finally won a game between Ryan, Kaitlin and myself today!! YEAH!!!