Tasting room
Surrounded by vineyards, it can be rather confusing for visitors to choose which vineyards to visit. Numerous options of tours at varying price levels are on offer, but we decided to head to Vines of Mendoza for some assitance and education in Argentinian wines.
Opening at 3pm, we entered the entrance hall and were greeted by a friendly assitant who explained the options available. You can go and sit in the lovely vine covered courtyard and have a glass or bottle of wine, or you can go to the tasting room and have a Flight of wines, which is what we opted to do. Menus give you lists of the various Flights on offer, consisting of tastings of 5 wines, there are options of whites only, reds only, malbecs only, and it goes on. We did a mixed flight called “Las Muestras” which was a signature sampling of regional varieties, for $75, although the flights vary in price according to the wines of course, and this flight was shared between the two of us. The lovely Marcella took us through each wine, explaining who the wine maker was, the area the grapes are from, etc. In all it took around 45 minutes, and it was an excellent way to find out about wines from different vineyards.
courtyard
On Friday evenings they do a special offer where certain wines by the glass have a discount, so we returned as it is such a lovely venue, then on Sunday after our lunch we headed down there for another Flight, “Especial de Blancos” which gave us a taste of the summer’s best white wines – fabulous. I would say Vines de Mendoza should be on the ‘must do list’ for any visitor to Mendoza with an interest in wine! Not only will your knowledge of Argentinian wines deepen but you will have a fabulous time!
In the end we didn’t get to a vineyard, our plans were foiled by a taxi strike on our last day. Nicki, a fellow traveller we had spent some time with over the week we spent in Mendoza province, went on two wine tours and although expensive ($135 USD), she said both tours were fabulous, generous and worth every penny. We had checked out Trout & Wine and they had lovely, but expensive, tours on offer… all very much tailored to the US market.
