Argentina: Bikes and Wine

Mendoza
Day Six
Thursday morning we traveled from Mendoza to Maipu to rent bikes from Mr. Hugo. Along with our bikes they provided a map of the wine road with eight suggested stops: six wineries, one olive oil factory and one chocolate factory....YES!

San Felipe
Our first stop was el Museo del Vina la Rural, which makes San Felipe wine. There we got an extensive tour and at the end, finally, a tasting.








Trapiche
The next winery was a ways down the road. We were excited when we got there and realized we'd had some Trapiche wine the day before. Also, we met a really nice couple from Guatemala. And, you'll never believe this, the girl half of the couple studied abroad in Algona, Iowa! She loved it.
I think you can find Trapiche pretty easily in the States. It's all over the shelves here in Colombia. Trapiche's winery was noticibly more modern then the others, but they would have to be considering the huge amounts of wine they produce.







Bodega Familia Di Tomaso
By this time we were pretty hungry and luckily there was a restuarant/winery just a few miles down the road. We didn't tour this winery, just sat right down to eat, and of course, drink. Their malbec was the best...so good. And we split a prosciutto sandwich with herbed butter (prosciutto AND butter, good thing we're on bikes!). We also split a salad with fresh garden greens and you guessed it...procsiutto, big delicious hunks of it. Brad and I agree, it was the best meal of the trip.
view from our table


Laur
After our lunch we headed a long way down the road to visit an olive oil factory. The tour was short and made making olive oil look pretty easy. Squeeze it, seperate it, eat it. We brought back four bottles, which were kind of a pain to haul around on the bike, but worth it.
olive trees
old olive press

Vina el Cerno
After riding halfway back up the wine road Brad and I discovered that we were hungry once again. Fortunately we knew from the friendly people at Mr. Hugo that we could find chorizo sandwiches at the winery Vina el Cerno. When we got there we were greeted by a big group of little kids, dressed up like superheros with burlap sacks as capes, challenging us to a game of turkey. I played along and charged right at them with my bike. They moved out of the way and then grabbed on to the back of the bike, making me pull them up to the main house where suddenly they disappeared. After having another malbec and another, even more delicious chorizo sandwhich we were hoping to see the kids again on our way out. We weren't disappointed.
the wine road





Our last stop was the chocolate factory, so we had a few pieces of chocolate and a nice liquor and then took our tired butts home.