A step back...getting to Las Lenas
We toured vineyards in the Valle de Ucu located 1.5 hours south of Mendoza last Saturday. Our amazing driver Genarano spent the better part of the day shuttling us between vineyards and lunch.
Our first stop was Andeluna Cellars where we enjoyed a wonderful tour, good (not great) wine that was very unique and chatted with Jessica our Mendozian host. When we realized that we were late for lunch we departed to Bodega Azul.
We soon became friends with Mario the owner of Bodega Azul. Mario has a small winery where he does the majority of the work. He even uses a hand press to smash the grapes! Mario gave us the tour of his 30x60 building where everything happens except for bottling. When the wine is ready to be bottled he rents a truck that bottles in the driveway! During our last excursion to wine country we learned that our driver prefers Cab's so Mario donated a bottle to Genarano for driving us around town for the day.
After Azul we departed for a touristy bodega named Salentein. It had a cool art museum, but a bad chef. Skip lunch at Salentein if you ever make it to Mendoza. You can enjoy the view and the art without eating.
After lunch the plan was to head to another small town to catch the bus that travels between Mendoza and Las Lenas. Upon arrival to the bus station we learned that the bus was full! We were told the day prior that if we wanted to purchase tickets from the small town we could not do it from Mendoza. We should have spent the ext $0.60 and bought full fare tickets from Mendoza and jumped on the bus mid-way.
Genarano came to the rescue and drove us all the way to Las Lenas. We felt very bad for him because he ended up working a 17 hour day, but he did get to keep 30% of the fair. Along the way he said that he ususally drives people to Las Lenas a few times each winter and feels lucky to get each trip because of the large fare. It made us feel better, but we still felt bad when he had to turn around for a 5 hour drive home at 8:30pm. We gave him a sweet tip, wished him well and told him that we would be in touch when we returned to the city when we needed a few more rides.
Our first stop was Andeluna Cellars where we enjoyed a wonderful tour, good (not great) wine that was very unique and chatted with Jessica our Mendozian host. When we realized that we were late for lunch we departed to Bodega Azul.
We soon became friends with Mario the owner of Bodega Azul. Mario has a small winery where he does the majority of the work. He even uses a hand press to smash the grapes! Mario gave us the tour of his 30x60 building where everything happens except for bottling. When the wine is ready to be bottled he rents a truck that bottles in the driveway! During our last excursion to wine country we learned that our driver prefers Cab's so Mario donated a bottle to Genarano for driving us around town for the day.
After Azul we departed for a touristy bodega named Salentein. It had a cool art museum, but a bad chef. Skip lunch at Salentein if you ever make it to Mendoza. You can enjoy the view and the art without eating.
After lunch the plan was to head to another small town to catch the bus that travels between Mendoza and Las Lenas. Upon arrival to the bus station we learned that the bus was full! We were told the day prior that if we wanted to purchase tickets from the small town we could not do it from Mendoza. We should have spent the ext $0.60 and bought full fare tickets from Mendoza and jumped on the bus mid-way.
Genarano came to the rescue and drove us all the way to Las Lenas. We felt very bad for him because he ended up working a 17 hour day, but he did get to keep 30% of the fair. Along the way he said that he ususally drives people to Las Lenas a few times each winter and feels lucky to get each trip because of the large fare. It made us feel better, but we still felt bad when he had to turn around for a 5 hour drive home at 8:30pm. We gave him a sweet tip, wished him well and told him that we would be in touch when we returned to the city when we needed a few more rides.
posted by Bradley Krugh at 4:58 PM
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