This post is more geared to those not familiar with Mendoza and the winery experience, I thought it would be a good opportunity to share my thoughts on the wine experience (based on visiting 14 wineries) compared to the Napa or Sonoma experience. I shared some other general stuff in the Mendoza thread but thought this might be a little more pertinent for the wine thread.

1. Argentina wine is so much more than just Malbec, as is the impression we get here in the midwest part of the US. We knew we would try a lot of different types of wine but thought we would end up gravitating to the Malbec when it came time to bring some wine home. You'll see how wrong I was when you see my list of favorites below.

2. The tours in Mendoza are longer tours where they will walk you through the entire winery. Just when we thought we would be tired of seeing tanks and barrels we'd either see something a little different or find out something unique about their processes, history, etc that made it fun to keep going.

3. There is absolutely no obligation (as others have said here) to buy wines at a winery. They will happily sell you the wine, but I got the impression that it isn't the norm at many of the places we visited. We tried to buy at least a bottle from every producer because it can be difficult (but not impossible) to find the wines in Minnesota.

4. I was surprised at the number of higher end wines we got to sample during our tours. Most of them came as part of the standard tastings but it is also worth the few extra pesos to try the more premium wines.

5. In addition to the quality of wines, the tasting "samples" are more like full glasses (not the tiny bit as in Napa). That doesn't even include the barrel or tank tasting you do at some of these wineries either. We learned pretty quick you need to pace yourself if you're planning to visit more than a couple wineries in a day.

6. You'll get to try a lot of different types of tasting. We tasted wines being sold as well as out of tanks and barrels. We also got to try some Terroir tasting at Achaval Ferrer where you try 3 wines (100% Malbec) grown from grapes at different estates. The terroir tasting was a great experience to see how much different 3 wines can taste when the only major difference in them was the micro-climate where they were grown.

As I mentioned in the Mendoza thread we tried so many wonderful wines so it is hard to pick some favorites. The list I've put together covers both some of our favorites as well as wines that we found distinctive. I put the years in where I could remember the exact vintages.

-- Carmelo Patti Gran Assemblage (2003): This is one of the best wines I've ever tried anywhere (and the best blend by far.) I've heard the 2002 is even better though.

-- CarinaE Malbec Finca Deneza (2004): I believe this is the first year wine was produced by CarinaE. It was probably the best Malbec we tried, although the Kinien from Ruca Malen was also very good.

-- Achaval Ferrer Finca Altamira: One of the Terrior wines they sell. We tried all 3 from a barrel so they were very young, but this really stood out.

-- Tempus Alba Pleno: One of the best blends we tried. All of the Tempus Alba wines we tried were excellent but this was the best of them IMO.

-- Benegas Sangiovese: I generally don't like 100% Sangiovese wines, but I could have bought a case of this wine very easily. I think people trying this blindly would be shocked to find out it is from Argentina

-- Salentein Pinot Noir (2005): I tried a Pinot Noir from Argentina before we left and it was awful so I was worried to try this one. Argentina will become a great place for Pinot if more of them taste like the one from Salentein and the one we had at Vistalba.

-- Vistalba Corte B: Another excellent blend wine. The 30% Bonarda in this wine gives it a very distinct and excellent taste.

-- Ruca Malen Petite Verdot: Another wine with a very distinctive taste. I haven't tried a lot of Petite Verdot but there was just something about this wine I really enjoyed.

-- Achaval Ferrer dolce (Malbec dessert wine 2008): Alex mentioned this earlier in the thread. It's probably the best dessert wine I've tried anywhere. You can only buy it at the winery since they made only 1000 bottles of it but hopefully production will increase so it can be exported.

I hope the list is helpful for those who might look for something interesting to try either in Mendoza or when looking for a wine or two in the US.