By Alexi Barrionuevo for The New York Times.The sunlight sliced through the clear glass of the gazebo-like restaurant at Familia Zuccardi, one of dozens of wineries located in the small town of Maipú, just outside the city of Mendoza, Argentina. The purple-red malbec and torrontés grapevines glistened in the early afternoon sun. Inside, a waitress poured us chardonnay as bread sticks and an appetizer of ham ravioli arrived. She brought a different chardonnay for the cannelloni filled with sweetbread. Then a hearty malbec, Argentina’s signature wine, accompanied the main course of baby goat rolls filled with sun-dried tomatoes and aubergine.
For the apple with cardamom soup, oak ice cream and goat cheese — the “pre-dessert” on this tasting menu — a sweet white wine cleared the palate. Then one more malbec appeared for the dessert of yerba mate foam with grapefruit and orange caviar.
After getting up from the table, more than a little lightheaded, we passed through a courtyard where visitors had put their feet up and were sipping tea while reading books amid the chirping birds and warm sun peeking through the trees. No one seemed in any rush to leave.
Such is winery-hopping in Mendoza — Latin America’s largest winemaking region. Situated some 600 miles west of Buenos Aires, the province is home to more than 800 wineries, about 100 of which actively receive tourists. And as Argentine wine exports continue to grow by 25 percent a year, this 57,000-square-mile area is drawing not only more tourists, but also vintners, who see in Mendoza the same charm and potential that propelled more established wine regions decades ago.
“Mendoza is Napa 30 or 40 years ago,” said Michael Evans, a former Democratic campaign strategist from Washington, D.C., who moved to Mendoza six years ago to go into the wine business.
But while money is pouring in, charming hotels are popping up, and wineries are going all-out architecturally, Mendoza remains very much an old-world experience. In the course of two visits over the past two years (the most recent in May), I found that days can easily turn into a week driving along dusty roads, knocking on winery doors and indulging in lunches that never seem to end.
Mendoza and wine have been intricately intertwined since the 1550s when Spanish settlers brought vineyard cuttings from Chile’s Central Valley to what are now the provinces of Mendoza and San Juan. Just a few years later a provincial governor, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, instructed a French agronomist to bring grapevine cuttings from France. Argentina can thank him for its original malbecs, the robust red wines that are such perfect accompaniments to the country’s beef-heavy diet and which have become synonymous with its wine exports in the past decade.
New winemaking expertise arrived in the 1800s with the first wave of European immigrants, many escaping a phylloxera epidemic that had ravaged vineyards in their homelands.
After an earthquake in 1861 that killed at least 5,000 people, the city of Mendoza was rebuilt with large squares and wider streets and sidewalks to help resist future earthquake damage. Today those refinements, especially the sprawling plaza with its colorful fountain, lend the place a grand and stately feel.
In the decades that followed the quake, Mendoza developed into a center for winemaking and olive oil production, with its wine gaining fame in the early 1900s when winemakers began exporting it during the country’s economic boom. But when the country fell on harder economic times, foreign investment dried up and so did the quality of Argentine wine.
Things began to turn around in the 1990s, when the winemaker Nicolás Catena, scion of the Catena Zapata winery, pioneered the modern malbec. After a stint as an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, he returned to Argentina in the early 1980s and began planting vines at different altitudes, up to almost 5,000 feet above sea level, and took advantage of microclimates that allow for more varied blends. More recently, millions of dollars in foreign capital have been flowing in from around the globe, with investors attracted by the relatively cheap land and a healthier Argentine economy. They are both buying vineyards outright and pumping life into traditional family operations. Kendall Jackson and Moët & Chandon have facilities there.
But still, while its wineries are fortified with state-of-the-art technology and its visitor centers rival any in Napa Valley, it remains a region where the slow pace and rustic backdrop recall an earlier age.
First-time visitors to Mendoza hoping to sample lots of wines are often disappointed to learn how far apart the wineries are and how limited their hours can be. Visiting four or five wineries in a weekend is an ambitious agenda, which is why I strongly urge staying longer.
There are several ways to approach the visit. My girlfriend and I stayed in the city of Mendoza. With a population of 110,000, it has wonderful restaurants along with places to stay that range from boutique hotels to chains like the Park Hyatt and the Sheraton. Outside the city, many wineries also have inns on the premises, offering everything from simple rooms to luxurious hideaways with access to horses and golf.
If you stay in Mendoza, however, you will need a car to visit the wineries. You can rent one or do what we did, which is to hire a taxi for multiple day trips at about $100 a day. We found that our driver, with a cellphone full of winery numbers, was invaluable in making the most of our time there.
Most of the better wineries are located 30 minutes to two hours from downtown Mendoza, so planning is critical. (Also, some of the larger wineries require reservations.)
If time is tight, choose a handful of the wineries recommended by local sommeliers and wander at leisure at each for half a day. Or stay in one of the smaller rural towns like..Read full story
