More Wine Touring!
What can I say, another wonderful day in South America!
Today was spent touring through the vineyards and country side of Mendoza. Our first stop was at a lovely little boutique winery – Clos De Charcas. This winery operates in the original building dated way back to 1921! A family-run winery, which uses many of the traditional mixed with more modern wine making techniques. It only produces 70,000 bottle a year, but boy are they good! It really was hard to pick favorite… Wine tasting at 10:30 am, this is the life!
Our next stop was the much larger Norton winery. Here we had a chance to sample a 2010 Malbec in the process of becoming wine right from the big steel containers, a 2009 Malbec straight from the oak barrel before its ready to be bottled, and finally the end product, 2005 Malbec. A great way to taste the evolution of the grape.
Ok… after all this tasting we are ready for some food! Our lunch spot was, of course, another winery… Ruca Malen. What a treat! We had a 5 course lunch, each course was paired with wine, yes, that was 5 glasses of vino! Amazing food, wonderful wine, lots of laughs…all with panoramic view of the vineyard and Andes.
Just when we think our day is ending, we make a trip to an olive factory. Yes! Another tasting! But this time no alcohol is involved, however we did learn about the olive making process.
Really, what a great day. I feel so lucky to be experiencing this with such great people. It’s sad to think today is our last visit to a winery, but I need not worry, as I know with this group there is still much more wine to come!
Watch out Buenos Aires! The Canadian group is on its way!!