Our highlights of Mendoza
Finally, this was the Argentinian city that we were both craving; a beautiful city and well maintained.
Mendoza is a famous wine region and with a shared love of wine, we couldn’t wait to explore the vineyards and winery’s outside of the city, but this doesn’t take away from the city itself, with a large park, characterful streets and plazas, trendy bars, and a variety of restaurants.
Walking around Mendoza city
As you may have gathered, we love to walk as much as possible around the places we are staying to get a real feel for the area.
Our efforts where not wasted on the beautiful city. The streets, surrounded by overhanging trees, are wide and spacious, giving you sense of space within the city, which is hard to achieve! We learned that this was by design as after the earthquake of 1861, which completely destroyed Mendoza, they decided to widen the streets for safety of future earthquakes.
There are many nice streets and plazas to explore and we used Plaza Independencia (afternoon market here Thursday to Sunday) as a good starting point:
Calle Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (which turns into to Calle Doctor Emilio Civit) – contains opulent houses homing the elite and is the best route for accessing the park.
Calle Aristides Villanueva – a trendy street with many bars and restaurants, where you can spend the evenings.
Calle Juan B Justo – a local, less commercial street with good restaurants and bars at reasonable prices (without compromising on quality).
Av. Espana – contains row after row of retail shops.
There are many more but these are the most notable ones we came across during our stay.
Parque General San Martin
This is a very large park (420 hectares!) containing universities, football stadiums, a velodrome, bmx bike tracks, tennis courts, a rowing lake, a zoo, camping site and many other attractions they have managed to add in to this area, and yet it doesn’t feel squeezed in…there is still so much space everywhere!
Enter the park through the huge iron gates and head to the information desk where they will give you a map and a suggested walk based on what you want to see. We walked to “Cerro De La Gloria” (a monument on top of a hill with views over the city and mountains that make the short steep walk worthwhile). We then walked back to the Lake (‘Lago’) for lunch.
Top Tip: take your own lunch and cross over the small bridge to the little island (‘Isla’) and admire the lovely views of the mountains and lakes whilst nibbling on a sandwich.
Wine Tour
The two most famous wine regions in this area are Muipi and Lujan De Cuzco, where there are many wine tours to choose from. Bike tours have to be the best way to visit the wineries, and you have the options of just hiring the bike and going solo, a group tour or a private tour with your own guide.
We booked our tour with Baccus Biking, which seemed to offer a very competitive rate. We negotiated a half day private tour to see two wineries with an English speaking guide (900 pesos per person including a transfer there and back, bike rental, guide, map and entry into two wineries). We could keep the bikes all day and visit any of the other wineries ourselves in addition, so we decided to visit a third winery.
We went to Nieto Senetiner, Carmelo Patti and Pulmary. We were amazed at the variety that these three places offered.
Nieto Senetiner – a very large commercial winery and vineyard where we learned the basics of tasting wine. This was a well polished and classy winery!
Carmelo Patti – a small family run winery where we met Carmelo himself and what a character! His love of wine is extremely infectious. He allowed us to taste his Malbec wine from 2013 and we can safely say that it was one of the best wines we have ever tried. We are used to drinking Malbec wine that contains a consistent, warm and earthy taste but this Malbec created a taste explosion, which we didn’t think was possible to achieve with Malbec wines. We feel very lucky to have tried it.
Pulmary – a quirky family run organic winery where we tried wine directly from the barrels. They were so friendly and accommodating to us that they allowed us to have our packed lunch in their lovely garden and gave us a glass of wine to start the tasting journey.
All three wineries were amazing, but were so contrasting that we recommend seeing all three. Although build in a siesta at the end of the day!!
Top Tip:
Make sure you do the bike wine tours and see at least three or four different wineries. Seeing only two does not give you a well rounded experience of the area and wine making culture.
Food Recommendations:
El Asadito – We had a parilla for two people for 570 pesos. The quality of the meat is good and this place is popular with the locals.
Bianco Nero – go here for fantastic ice creams. A great choice for after lunch desert.
