Mendoza Trip Report #8: Day 2 of Wine Tasting
We got a late start in the morning, but the timing actually worked out great, because we arrived too late for the tour at the first place and got to go straight to the wine tasting.
As an aside, we noticed that tours are very important to each of the wineries, they’re extremely proud of the wine industry and anxious to show off the subtleties of their particular technique. It was rare that you could just do a tasting without a tour, whereas in the US you usually have to schedule in advance to take one.
There was crazy topography on the drive to the Uco Valley, with desert hills unlike any I’ve seen. There was nothing graduated about the terrain, just lots of abrupt steep little hills crowding together. Enroute we passed through a produce checkpoint designed to protect the valley from possible disease or contaminants.
Descending into the valley we had gorgeous views of fertile plateaus stretching between the dessert and the hills. Apparently that area is known for amazing potatoes, but as Miguel explained “none leave Argentina, we save them all for ourselves.”
We had a great time at the 3 wineries and got to experience and taste first hand the differences between Luyan de Cuyo and Uco Valley. Primarily the fact that Uco is at a higher elevation, so the grapes have thicker skins and thus typically more bold, dark fruit flavors.
Uco Valley Tastings:
Andeluna Cellars
Salentein
Bodega Azul
Read about our Luyan de Cuyo experience – Mendoza Trip Report #6: Day 1 of Wine Tastings
Previous Posts:
Mendoza Trip Report #1 — IAD-MIA
Mendoza Trip Report #2 — Element by Westin Miami Airport Mendoza Trip
Report #3 –MIA -(Caracas?)- SCL
Mendoza Trip Report #4 — Holiday Inn Santiago Airport
Mendoza Trip Report #5 — SCL-MDZ
Mendoza Trip Report #6: Day 1 of Wine Tasting
Mendoza Trip Report #7: Park Hyatt Mendoza
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Couple questions: Did three winery visits take all day? Also, how expensive were the driver, meals, and winetastings? Trying to get a sense for how many days I can afford. Finally, love your site!
For Uco Valley it took from about 9AM, returning to the hotel around 4PM. It takes about an hour and a half to get there and almost every winery “requires” you to take a tour before you can do a tasting. That said, I find them more diverse and interesting than most US winery tours. We probably could have fit in a 4th winery if we hadn’t dawdled over lunch and done an extra reserve tasting 🙂
As for prices, it ranged from $150-180 a day for the car and driver. I highly recommend Miguel Sanz (j_miguelsanz@hotmail.com). He was far more interested in taking us to the wineries we might like than worried about kickbacks. Tours & tasting ranged from $5-40. On our trip we wanted to try as many nice wines that weren’t available in the US as possible, so we splurged. But if you’re not always going for the gran reserve wines you’ll be in the $5-$10 range.
Restaurants and room service are very cheap. For a nice meal at a local restaurant (or room service at the park hyatt mendoza for some items), you’ll pay <$10 an entree. To do gourmet lunches at the wineries with wine pairings, you're looking at $40-$90, but since you're getting 4+ course with almost full glass pairings, it's a great deal. In a nutshell, you can save alot of money and still have a fabulous time by not doing the lunches at the wineries and skipping the high end tastings and still have a perfectly wonderful time. We probably could have done a day for as cheap as $30-$40 in tastings and lunch. Let me know if you have any more questions, I'm super excited (and rather wistful) you might be going to Mendoza!