Two of the greatest pleasures in life are food and wine. A match made in heaven.
Plenty of vineyards and restaurants take full advantage of this wonderful marriage but none indulge quite as much into the celestial bond as Familia Zuccardi: cooking classes, a restaurant, one of Mendoza’s best olive oil factories and, of course, plenty of wine make this a boozy foodie’s paradise.
I went along to the Maipu vineyard for a day of exploring Zuccardi’s pantry. We arrived at the cosy visitor’s centre and were greeted with a calorific breakfast – a welcome start! After polishing off our croissants and licking our sticky fingers we moved into the kitchen for a cooking class where we donned our chef’s hat and apron, washed our greedy paws and the chef took us through what we would be on our lesson’s menu: empanadas, bread and some sweet treats. Then it was straight to work, but not before pouring us a couple glasses of Sauvignon Blanc – now this is how I like to cook!
Ingredients all laid out for us we started making our bread dough as our teacher explained the science behind the magic. Some serious kneading and elbow grease later we left our dough to rise and took a tour of the BBQs. Zuccardi still uses both traditional outdoor ‘barro’ ovens as well as the usual parilla and conventional kitchen. It was fascinating to learn about the history of these wood-burning cement pods and see how the restaurant embraces a real range of cooking techniques – including molecular gastronomy techniques (such as freeze drying milk with light bulb ovens for unusual canapés).
After collecting some fresh herbs in the garden we made our way back to the kitchen to crack into empanada making. We made fresh fillings, practised expertly (and not so expertly) sealing them off and learnt the real secret to a good empanada (dieters cover your ears) – fresh ingredients and lashings of animal fat.
As we left the empanadas to cook in the ‘barro’, we turned our hand to sweet pastry making and finished off our bread. Washing our hands and hanging up our aprons it was time to sit back (with a cool glass of rose) and enjoy the fruits of our labour – gorgeous fluffy empanadas and sweet, crisp jam-stuffed pastries. Lovely.
After nibbling our starters we didn’t have long to make room for lunch – a full-on ‘all you can eat’ asado with salads and wine. We sat down in the beautiful restaurant and tucked into our own warm bread, Zuccardi’s lushious olive oils and got stuck into trying more wine.
At Zuccardi you pick whichever, and however many, wines (Santa Julia line) you like to match with your meal. This gives you the freedom to try some unique combinations and, never being one to shy away from a challenge, I took it as a good opportunity to try all of the wines and everything on the BBQ.
After dessert with Zuccardi’s lovely dessert wine we tripped off to the Olive Shed with Miguel Zuccardi (the youngest of the three children) to learn about the vineyard’s more recent venture, producing olive oil. We were lucky enough to catch the olive oil in production – a surprisingly fast process where fresh, hard olives are cleaned, crushed to a pulp and then the oil is extracted, creating a memorable and heady aroma. Zuccardi’s line of olive oils have been enormously well received over the past few years – adding yet another feather to their culinary bow.
Zuccardi is a great place to visit to see how a large modern winery still embraces the simple pleasures in life and preserves traditional cooking methods as well as working with cutting edge technology. The food more than anything reflects this – while still pushing boundaries with creative and unusual dishes like black olive ice cream, it also knows the value of Argentina’s traditions and its famous empanadas and asado.
The Mendoza Sun, written by Amanda Barnes (Contributing Author), photo by Zuccardi.
Amanda Barnes is a freelance writer currently living in Mendoza. For more information, visit www.amandabarnes.co.uk or click here to see her profile.
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