July 2, 2013

Monday leaves little to be blogged about. Sooo we’ll go ahead and jump to the good stuff on Tuesday. Wine tours :)

We had signed up for the Baccus Bikes Wine Tour with quite a crew from our hostel (total of 7). We had heard from other guests that this tour was much more enjoyable than the alternative, Maipu, for two reasons. 1. The bikes were a lot better and 2. The Maipu tour was alongside a highway and we clearly didn’t need to mix bikes, wine, Argentine drivers, and highway traffic. So Baccus it was!

We packed our lunches to save a few pesos and left the hostel at 9:30. We took the 1-15 bus a ways out of the city, and as instructed we got off at the corner of plaza Italia next to a church and crossed through the Plaza to get to Baccus Bikes. We were outfitted with helmets and bikes and given a map and schedule for the day. We had four wineries on tap: Lagarde, A La Antigua, Clos de Chacras, and Pulmary.

Fortunately for us and our safety, we were hitting the furthest destination first. As we ventured out towards Lagarde, it became pretty evident that the bikes left much to be desired. I was so worried about Brent’s back tire staying in tact that I failed to notice what beautiful scenery I was missing. I can only imagine the state that the Maipu bikes were in…, but I suppose that adds to the charm of the experience. A well-aged bike to compliment the well-aged wine.

After about 20 minutes of crusing and dogding traffic, we arrived at Lagarde.

We were a little early but seeing as we were the first group we got right down to it. We met the sommelier and began the tour. It went as any wine tour would, starting with how the grapes are broken down, then how the different kinds are aged, so forth and so on. The one thing I enjoyed most about this particular tour was the bit about the sparkling wine and the French method of infusing bubbles versus standard carbonization. French method = smaller bubbles = more bueno.

We concluded our trip at Lagarde with the tastings. We had 2 options and we chose to blow it out and go for the expensive one. For fifty pesos a peice, we got to try two of their first tier wines, one of their second tier wines, one of their top tier wines, and a sparkling wine. I honestly don’t remember all the different kinds we tried but I know somewhere in there, there was a torrontès, a cab franc, and a Malbec.

All in all a good visit at Lagarde, but definitely had more interesting things to come.
Which brings us to our next stop which was quite a curve ball. A little place called A La Antigua which specialized in artesenal olive spreads, dulce de leches, liqueurs and absinthe. Interesting stop, cute owner, but nothing mind blowing to report on this one.

Before the next stop, we scarffed down our bag lunches. Moving on to our third stop, Clos de Chacras. The routine was just the same as the previous winery; tour then tastings. Except, I found this tour to be a little more interesting because of the concrete tanks they used to age the wine and the history behind them. I won’t go into the nitty gritty but it was an interesting tour. Instead of going for the tastings, Brent and I chose to split a bottle of their Malbec Rose. It was much cheaper than the tastings, exclusive to this winery, and we even had some left to take home.

After getting a little lost and pissing off some more drivers, we arrived at our final destination, Pulmary. This was our favorite all together. It was a much smaller vineyard that focused on organic wine. The tour was super lax and the tastings started as soon as we arrived and continued throughout the tour. We started off with a sample of a Malbac straight out of one of their 3 concrete tanks. It was still very early on in the ageing process but still delicious and fruity. We contiued our tour down to the cellar where we stayed for the remainder of our time at Pulmary. Very cool place.

Finally, the day was done and we had impressively been out and about and drinking wine from 12pm up until 6. The rest of our group was feeling quite loose. Brent and I, however, were not seeing such impressive results. I guess three years behind the bar will give you that. I still managed to end up with a whopping headache when we finally got home but we nipped it in the bud with muchos agua con gas and some middle eastern cuisine from a very cute place called, Cocina poblano. Their tabule and hummus were muy bueno.