After a 20 hour bus ride, which we are quite use to these days (it is going to make my next 11 hour flight to Israel seem like nothing), we arrived in Mendoza, the wine capital of Argentina (and I´m pretty sure all of South America), in the Mendoza Province of Argentina. The city, even though a major tourist destination because of the vineyards surronding the town, did not have that touristy feel that Bariloche had (and that we didn´t like too much). The city downtown was a nice wide-avenued place to walk around, with a few main streets, a pedestrian mall, and one major and 4 minor parks/plazas. As we learned while reading lonely planet the towns streets and avenues are all built pretty wide because in 1861 the city was flattened by an earthquake. When they redesigned the city they decided to do so with the idea that if another earthquake occured, and the buildings collapsed again, that there would still be room in the middle of the streets for evacuation and making it easier for rubble to be cleaned. As nice as the city itself was there truly is not a whole lot to do in the city besides walk around and enjoy the plazas. I would have to say though that since Buenos Aires, Mendoza has felt the most European out of any of the cities we have been to. 
The second day in town we decided to head out to the wineries in the ¨Greater Mendoza Area.¨ There seemed to really two options when it came to the wine tours...either to rent a bike out by the vineyards and bike around doing a self-guided tour or to go on an organized van tour. The van tours did go to a larger variety of vineyards, but they also seemed like more expensive places (hence taking a large chance of ending up with some snobby Frenchies on our tour). So we took a bus, with a Danish and a Dutch girl staying in our hostel, from the city center out about 45 minutes to Maipú (which is the beginning of the bike-wine trail). When we went to one company (Mr. Hugo, which we highly recommend, we will tell you why later) to rent bikes, as we were leaving they offered us helmets, to which the Dutch girl responded, ¨I´m Dutch, I know how to ride a bike!¨ So we peddled off to our first stop Museu del Vino-Bodega La Rural. 
We started here because first, it was the most northern point on the tour and second we thought it would give us a nice intro to wine tasting. We are sure if we would have been able to understand the Spanish tour we would have received a good intro to wine tasting. Unfortunatley, because it was Holy Week, there were more Spanish-speaking tourists then normal so English tours were not availible. I was able to get a history of the Bodega (Spanish for winery) from my 4 years of high school Spanish that I don´t remember (you can read more about the history from the link above). At the end of the tour through both winery and part of the vineyards they had a free sampling of one of their wines. It wasn´t as much as a normal tasting as the basically just poured 60 glasses of their wine and everybody just kind of took one. Trying to beat the crowds toward the nmext vineyard the four of raced out of the museum and headed down the street a few minutes to A la Antigua. Besides wineries the area also has a few speciality shops that ¨specialize¨ in chocalate, liquors, and olive oil. So for ten pesos ($2.50) we received a small tour explaining to us the process of olive oil making, the different types of olives they use, and then we got to sample lots of things. The first thing they allowed us to sample were their olive oil and balsamic vinager. This came to be a pretty large moral dilemma for Emily and I. Since we wanted to experience the olive oil of this place we were about to break pesach by tasting the oil with bread, we thought to ourselves that keeping pesach for four days without even being able to eat matzah (because well we didn´t have any) was pretty good. As we were reaching in to sample we noticed someone with a backpack full of matzah. Assuming he was Israeli I went up to him and asked, in Hebrew, if we could have some to sample the olive oil. He looked at me kind of with an astonished face. Turned out thatr he didn´t understand Hebrew. He was actually just from Buenos Aires, traveling around during a week off from classes (because of Holy Week). He was more then happy to help us keep pesach by sharing his matzah and as the next few minutes passed by and we also tried jams, olive spreads, and sauces he just kept handing us more matzah. Pretty much we were convinced that God sent him to us to make sure we kept Pesach (might make me sound crazy, but honestly what chances). In addition to the spreads the place also made a wide selection of gourmet liquors. We were allowed to sample a few so from the list of liquors we tried: Absinthe (I only had a bit, as one I have tried it before in Prague and two we had a long day ahead of us and didn´t want to start seeing any fairies flying around our heads) and a few different chocolate flavored liquors.
After a quick lunch with our friends near the olive fields, we hoped back on our bikes and headed towards the most Southern winery. Lets just say the map the bike place gave us was a little deceiving with distances. Yes it did hat it was only 12km, but biking from the most Northern to the most Southern tip of the map just took awhile. As we began heading south and a more wide road with bike paths turned in to a tree covered road with little space between you and the speeding trucks, we enjoyed the great views of the vineyards going on for miles until hitting the foot of the Andes. As long as the bike ride seemed atleast we had an amazing view. We finally arrived at Carinae Vineyards. This was probably the best of the tours that we saw, the tour guide gave us a nice history of the vineyard including that the owner took of the vineyards almost completly abandoned in in 1998, showed us the area where they barrel the wine and also their cellars where they age more of their select wines. And in a true French kind of way, they promised us they only use French Oak and never would use American Oak to barrel. At the end of the tour we sampled three of their wines (that were preselcted) which included their house speciality of a 60-40 Cabernet Sauvignon.
After we finished sampling we decided to head 2km north to the next winery, Famalia Di Tomaso. When we arrived we waited for a bit for the next English tour. We went through the wine tour, which was similar to the first one. At the end because the group we did the tour with already did their tasting we got to do a tasting by ourselves (midway through two Frenchmen joined in also). We tried 4 of their wines and then looked at our watch and realized we had about 20 minutes to bike to the last winery before it closed. So we went outside looking for our Dutch and Danish friends who decided to order some food and were still waiting on it. So we decided to hop on the bikes and bike to the final winery, Vina el Cerno. We got there about 5 minutes before they closed up and they told us we could not do a tour. Which we were for the most part fine with, because we pretty much got the jist of things during the three other tours. But they did say it was fine to sample their wine. This place we decided had the best wine tasting. Instead of them just selecting 3 or 4 of their cheaper wines for us to taste (for 15-20 pesos) this place offered us any four of their wines for 25 pesos (they also poured a complete half glass for each tasting compared to a "tasting portion"). So we decided to try some of their more mature wines including a 2000 S-C, 2002 Malbec, 2006 S-C, and a 2008 Merlot. We heavily enjoyed all four, and in the end even decided to buy the Merlot (best bang for its buck, aka cheap but still good).
Even though all the wineries closed at 6pm, one of the chocalate and fine liquor places did not close until 7pm. So after finishing our four-glasses we headed up to our final stop, Historias y Sabores. The things that they made were pretty similar to the other Chocalate and Liquor place that we went to at the begininning of the day. We sat outside with some American students, studying in Buenos Aires, that we had met at one of the other stops (we met them because two of them had their tandum bike stolen, by people who left their two individual rental bkes behind). We sat there just chatting and sampling and getting some good tips about touring in Salta. One curious liquor I taste tested was something I had seen at the other Speciality Store, Tobacco Liquor. I decided to order it, and surprisingly it was delicious (Emily refused to sample it). It basically just tasted like puffing on a really good Cuban and left no after taste or anything. Finally they kicked us out of the place at 7:30pm and we headed back to Mr. Hugo´s to return our bikes. When we arrived we were pleasently surprised by the fact that Mr. Hugo gave free wine to all of us already half-drunken customers. So we sat around for a bit drinking and chatting with other travelers. All in all it was a great/long day of drinking and as you can probably tell from the pictures of Emily and I, it was a day that just kept getting more and more tipsy. 
Our final day in Mendoza, we decided to take some advice of a friend that I went to Tel Aviv University with and we went rafting on the Mendoza River. Unlike the day before which was a comfortable 60 plus degress and sunny all day. The rapids were mainly Class 3 (during the Spring, they are probably Class 4). This day was cold, real cold, and I´m pretty sure we didn´t see the sun at all. This meant...cold water and no hot sun to dry us off. Needless to say we had an amazing time (Emily has gone rafter several dozen times at her old camp she worked at, but it was my first time). By the end we were pretty cold but it was hell of an experience. While you are out they have a photographer on land taking pictures of every raft and after you can purchase the photos for your raft (it was like 40 plus photos). So we decided to purchase it, these were a select few we chose. Enjoy!
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