Day 4 and more food….and some wine

What a wild night we had. The wind was howling and the raining was coming down hard. The power went in and out several times in the evening. Thankfully, we were hunkered down in our room and ready for bed so it didn’t really bother us – that is until the heat went out too. It was an extremely cold day and the night was bone chilling so we were quite cold when we woke up this morning. Fortunately, the team had maintenance here quickly and when we returned from breakfast we were able to take a nice hot shower in a warm room!

We had time this morning to actually get some exercise walking in the vineyard where we were able to see brief glances of the Andes under the layers of clouds – the snow level had definitely dropped much lower! Today we were picked up by Christian who entertained us with stories of his childhood in Argentina, then Long Island to North Carolina and back to Argentina. His accent was a mix of New Yorker and Spanish but his English was spot on. He took us to – where else but LUNCH. Lunch was a small countryside restaurant called Crudo. A young woman and her brother own and run the restaurant and their food is all cooked outside in a clay oven or over a wood fire. The execution and flavors of the dishes were outstanding AND they had a vegetarian option (and vegan). Very progressive for Argentina!

Lunch took a mere 3.5 HOURS! It seems it is okay to get up and leave your table as you await the next course, wander around, spend time scrolling on your phone….but the wait for each course was exciting to see the amazing artistry of the chef and enjoy the wines that had been selected to pair with the course. I was happy to finally get up and move around as we made our way to the final winery tasting of this leg of our journey.

Our guide took us to a rather large and somewhat over the top winery called Alfa Crux. Ron immediately began to hyperventilate (like he did when we went to buy a dresser for Taylor years ago at IKEA). The winery produces 250,000 cases of wine a year and is set up to run the tourists thru the winery and tasting. I, on the other hand, was horrified by the smell of fried foods that were also being served to the gazillions of tasters. If we hadn’t already prepaid for the tasting we would have both turned around and left. There was so much wrong with this tasting experience – but the art on the tanks was humorous – the story is that a German artist was in residence and liked to drink so he started painting their tanks….

We also find it interesting that on numerous occasions we’ve been poured a wine and told that we like it! It surely must be a translation issue….as we really didn’t like the wine. Ron told our guide that he didn’t really enjoy the Rosé and I had to explain that one of the wines was corked….we probably have our pictures somewhere warning other wineries that we are “difficult” American guests!

Tomorrow we catch a flight out from Mendoza to Santiago where we will finally meet up with our GEO EX guide who will spend the next several weeks with us as we explore PATAGONIA….We are ready to stop eating and drinking so decadently and to get out and embrace the outdoor adventures ahead.