Wine Tasting in Mendoza

We´re getting ready to leave Mendoza tomorrow, but we´ve had a wonderful time here. The city itself is very beautiful with tree-lined streets and many homes surrounded by intricate wrought iron. The main streets have coffee shops, ice cream parlors (gelato), restaurants on every corner and in between. Because there are trees everywhere, everyone can sit in the shade and drink their coffee or eat their lunches. At night, of course, everything gets going fairly late. We are stretching it to eat dinner at 8:30. Most everyone shows up around 10, just as we are finishing, but even though we´ve had coffee and a sweet treat or ice cream at 4, we are still hungry by 8. Lights come on at 9 and light up all the cafes on the streets. I wish I could send you a photo, but I still don´t know how to download. Along the streets, between them and the sidewalks, are pretty deep ditches where they open the water gates to water the trees. Without them this would be a pretty desolate place, how and dusty. So, we have had to keep our eyes on the places we are walking. We said we´d be lucky not to break a leg falling in the irrigation ditch. I think we´ve made it, though.

Yesterday we went bodega hopping with our guide Javier whose parents´ home we stayed in. He took us to 4 wineries where we tasted from 5-10 wines each. Fortunately, each glass had only an inch or so of wine, but still I felt a little light-headed at the end. One of the wineries had a beautiful lunch for us, pared with the appropriate wine for each course. What a treat! The old home is of classic Italian architecture with thick walls and wrought iron (you´d love it, Mom) and a courtyard in the back, surrounded by brick walls and roses. We loved staying at the B&B they call Hotel Italia. It´s right across the street from a square with a fountain and Italian looking statues. Beautiful.

So, tomorrow we will go back across the Andes to Viña del Mar. I will write more from there. Ciao!