We take a coach to Mendoza from Santiago at 7am which gives us the opportunity to enjoy the spectacular views of Andes as the road dictates.
About 7 hours later we arrive to Mendoza, we enjoy the warmer climate and friendly faces of boludos ;)
We have little plans regarding the town, primarily drink wine...enjoy the vibes of the vineyards and bodegas...and chillout.
We went to Maipu, a town outside Mendoza, for a bike ride around bodegas. We got our bikes and a map of vineyards and off we go....
We select 3 different wines but all Malbecs:
1. Fresh - the wine is straight from vat/pool put into the bottles
2. Classic - 80% of the wine is fresh from vat/ pool and remaining 20% is kept in oak barrel for a year;
3. Reserve - the wine is firstly stored for a year in a vat/pool, then one year in a oak barrel followed by a year in a bottel, and only after sold.
We both agreed that the reserva was best, however there was not much difference between the fsh and classic Malbecs.
We continued cycling from bodega to bodega, testing red wines. We stop for a lunch in a Mavi vineyard with a great view for the vineyard. We even got a small bottle as a gift ;)
Again we change some American Dollars on the blue market ("marcado azul") at 1 USD : 10.4 Argentinan Pesos instead of the official rate at 8...Great everything we buy here is just 20% cheaper..
We are just in time for the Reina del Vino - Queen of the Wine election, festival in Mendoza and overall in Argentina:
http://www.creativelena.com/en/travel-blog/news-from-argentina-beauty-queens-wine-theater-in-mendoza
We saw lots of carruselas - big trucks decorated with wine leaves etc. and of course with beautiful girls candidates for the queen of the wine. The girls were throwing mainly grapes, but also peers, even bottle of wine and melons - you better done get hit! Haha
Anecdote: The exciting goodies that we managed to get were condoms! We grabbed as many as possible, being on the budget it is precious ;)
The following evening we went to see the concert that was at the end of the election of the queen of wine. Being a bit ignorant to the Argentinian music scene, we still got that those stage artists were famous in their hey days... but their average age was above 60 ;)
Coach Mendoza - Santiago 359km, 6hrs (through Andes)