Mendoza Argentina

Our first stop in Argentina was Mendoza. Believe it or not, we visited some friends that used to live across the street from us in North Carolina. I think the highlight of the trip for Grace was being able to play with “real Americans.” Our friends really helped us in deciding what to do while we were in Mendoza.

Of course Mendoza is known for its wine, so our first day was spent touring wineries. Mendoza is known for its Malbec, which is right up our alley-a dry red and both wineries we visited boasted about their particular Malbec. Unfortunately, I was unable to have much wine so I had to trust Dean’s judgment about the different wines.

The first winery we visited was Catana Zapata. The building itself was built to resemble an Incan pyramid. It was a beautiful building, inside and out. The tour was interesting (especially since we managed to get in on an English tour) and their wines were excellent.









The second winery we visited was Norton. We’ve seen this label of wines in the US. During their tour, we were able to taste wines at different stages of the process. It was interesting to compare the wine at different stages in the wine-making process. Their wine cellar held an impressive 500,000 bottles of wine.







Since our first day in Mendoza was “pretty boring” according to Grace, we had to do something fun for her the second day. We visited a secluded farm at the foot of the Andes Mountains. We had to travel on a gravel road for 22 kilometers, then another 8 kilometers of dirt road to reach the farm. There, Grace and Dean went horseback riding-Grace’s favorite activity. We also had a wonderful asado (different types of grilled meat, mostly beef). Grace surprised everyone by eating three sausage links. She takes after her dad, she loves meat!






Sadly, we only had two days in Mendoza and on the third day we were heading to the airport to head to Bariloche. We would have liked to have one more day there to do some more exploring. Mendoza reminded us of the southwestern region of the US. The dry air was a nice change from the humidity we are used to.