After much needed rest (although I was still sore from all the biking on the prior day) it was off to get to serious wines into the Uco Valley with Bus Vitivinicola (
BUS VITIVINÍCOLA)It’s more or less a hop on/hop off bus that takes you around to various wineries. The winery schedule varies according to the day and there are both full and half day buses, except on Sundays. As a solo traveller, it’s very expensive to get around when you don’t have anyone to split with or able to write it off due to not working in the industry. Also what makes things (cost) worst/higher are that when it comes to tours (not just exclusive to Argentina) are that tours are usually targeted towards noobs (people who just want drink a lot of wine and don’t care if it’s entry level/crappy wines) or the higher end luxury markets for ballers. There is little in between. Hopefully being a certified sommelier will help going forward in the future.
Onwards though as there are 3 wineries to be visited. They are: Monteviejo, Salentein and Andeluna.
I'd only heard of Andeluna prior to this trip, but checking out websites and reviews of the wineries prior piqued my interest.As I mentioned before, different days, have different wineries, but it’s less on Sundays for the Uco Valley, but it’s also the furthest from the city of Mendoza.The bus itself was alright. There’s no pre-arranged seating so it’s fills up depending on where you are picked up as there are various pick up places throughout Mendoza.Along the way, the guide (if you will), does talk about the surrounding area (not just exclusive to wines), gives some instructions, but it’s not to the extent of a full tour where they go on the full time.
After about a 50min drive into the Uco Valley we arrived to the first winery: Bodega Monteviejo. Like the other wineries, the scenery is breathtaking. Nice crisp, cool mountain air, unlike Mendoza or Buenos Aires. Having said that, Mendoza’s air quality is no where near as bad as Beijing’s.
Monteviejo is more or less run by a travelling winemaker , Michel Roland for you wine geeks out there. This is a modern winery and throughout the tour they highlight how essentially no expense was spared. I did take photos of the winery, but didn't think anyone would want me to post the photos.
I love mountains.
The wines we were trying on the tour.
The mid-range (extra fee aka have to buy the bottle to try...)
The big daddy
Sadly I didn't get a chance to try it at the time, but I did get to try the Petit Fleur here at a tasting and it was pretty darn good. No regrets though in passing on it in Mendoza.
Cheers!
Nothing really stood out from this tour, but the view was great.The wines, MUCH better than Trapiche’s offerings and the higher end wines were available for purchase and tasting. However you only had to purchase the bottle to taste it, but ya… they were more accommodating than Trapiche and the staffed were MUCH better trained. I was able to talk with one of the assistant wine makers for a bit about the Argentinian wine industry, climate change and local wine making which was great.
After the tour and tasting it was off to Bodegas Salentein. This was about a 25-30min drive.Another nice and modern winery with some funky art.
This I decided to skip the tour and just go right to the tasting bar. As much as I enjoy learning about wines, the truth is most general public tours are more or less the same. At the winery I went right for the tasting bar. They actually had the info of the wines served and all were entry level. While it would have been neat to check out the art gallery that was part of the tour, it was time to get serious.
When I was at the tasting bar, the attendant and I got talking when she also mentioned that she too was also preparing for her certified sommelier exam. It was great to be able to try 3 of the higher end Malbecs (No Gran Vu sadly) in order to hammer down what a Malbec is should it appear on the blind tasting portion exam. Unfortunately, I had to pass on the other wines which would have been good to try such as the Shiraz and Pinot Noir.
This was incredible. So much I actually back a bottle back for myself and a colleague. I also preferred it over the single vineyard version.
I also brought back a bottle of the tier below the Primus (Numina), but have yet to open it. I'm aging the Primus though.
I didn't get to try out the Gran Vu sadly, (not available for sampling), but the price was up there in Napa Cab territory, so I decided to pass on it. I'm sure it's a good wine though.
I won’t get into tasting notes, but the Malbecs all had firm ripe fruit notes, with some earthiness ranging from subtle to pronounced depending on the wine. They were VERY generous with their pours, so much that I was pretty drunk by this point. Not stumbling, barely able to walk like Mr. Lahey from Trailer Park Boys, but enough to know that I needed water (badly) and food.
By the time I had finished sampling, taking my tasting notes and actually able to enjoy and savour the wines, I noticed people from the tour bus, were finishing the tours and going to get lunch. I tried the same and sat with some British travelers who were happy to sit with someone that spoke English... lol
While they did speak English on the tours, it was barely passable in most cases. This was the case for much of Argentina. Just an observation for unilingual speakers. It’s not as bad as Spain though. Not a big deal for me either way since I speak Spanish fluently.
Anyways, the restaurant was full and to say service was slow is an understatement. From what I could tell, there were many servers, but a lot were concerned with chatting amongst themselves rather than doing any actual work.
After being seated and waiting about 10mins to get a menu and then another almost 20mins for the server to take our orders, she comes back 15mins after that saying for the most part, the kitchen had run out of food on many items and even ran out of items they were using to sub with. ...?! She then tells us, it’ll be about 30-40mins wait time to get our food. Realizing that waiting will mean missing the bus and being stuck there, we cut our losses and waited for the bus to take us to Andeluna.
After a short wait, off we went to the final winery: Andeluna. While the drive there was only about 20mins, the lack of food and not much water was not helping matters. I did bring a small sandwich (was intended as a snack actually) and water with me but by that point I’d run out.
Andeluna, is nice but I was wine’d out. Their restaurant had also run out of food so there was no relief there. I decided to sit out this round of wines and just talked and sat with the British tourists. Neither of us did the tour. They did a flight and I did have a sip of a late harvest, and while it was decent, I'd rather go with a local producer which surprisingly costs less for the most part.
The restaurant at Andeluna (also didn't have any food)
Another drunk person on the tour got into a semi-racist rant about how Chileans were racist/bad people (He was Peruvian) etc. blah blah. Was so glad to get out of there.
Anyways, I slept back on the bus on the way back and grabbed a bite near the hotel and then called it a night. The next day it was off to continue my trip to Santiago for the final leg of the trip.
As for the bus itself? It was good. I'm glad I did it as it gave me a chance to get around. If you're in a budget (as in don't want to/able to get a private driver) this is certainly worth looking into. I would recommend it, but just be sure to look up the schedule prior as the wineries that are visited changes according to the day of the week.