Mendoza! Wine and mountains, mountains and wine! We spent four nights in Mendoza, a beautiful, medium-sized city in western Argentina that sits at the foot of the Andes mountains and is famous for its wine and numerous vineyards. We took advantage of the exchange rate in Argentina one last time and indulged by eating out, drinking wine, and then eating again and drinking more wine (we think that’s what you’re supposed to do in Mendoza, though).
The main downtown street is called Aristedes Villanueva, and it’s an extremely long and lively road with huge sidewalks full of restaurants and bars, all of which have very enticing outside seating for the perfect evening weather. Our Airbnb was conveniently right down the street from this area and was only a 15 minute walk from Parque San Martin, a beautiful park/lake that was excellent for walking/running (Shari lovesss running). Our first night we had an amazing dinner at a restaurant/wine bar called Azafran. Given that it’s Mendoza, they had a large wine cellar where you go and pick out your wine yourself. We used our trusty wine connoisseur skillz (i.e. pick type of wine and price range then select bottle based on nicest name and/or prettiest label) and had an amazing meal with some delicious wine (the method never fails…until it does).
Garden at our Airbnb 
Awaiting tasty meat
We spent one day exploring an area called Chacras de Coria, which is about a 30 minute drive from downtown Mendoza. We decided to rent bikes as per some advice we had gotten, and the woman at the bike rental place mapped out a biker-friendly route for us and told us which wineries visit. Our favorite winery by far was one called Viamonte. Its setting was beautiful and had incredible views of the Andes, and we had a private tasting with an extremely nice and knowledgeable woman. After biking around and going to three wineries, we were pretty pooped and ready to head back to Mendoza.
Biking up to Viamonte 
Viamonte 
Deluxe 
Couldn’t tell you the name of this winery but it was pretty swell! 
Fast and the Furious 
V serious about wine
The following morning we woke up bright and early and were picked up at 8:30am for our full-day wine tour in the Uco Valley. There are a few different wine areas in the Mendoza area, and Uco Valley is the furthest away but the most scenic, as it’s the closest to the Andes mountains. Since we’re not the biggest wine people, we decided to go for the most scenic wineries we could find, hence our decision to go to the Uco Valley. The drive to the wineries offered beautiful views of the Andes, and we had a very nice driver named Pedro who drove us to the Uco Valley and between the wineries. Davy also learned during the drive that the tallest mountain in North and South America (Aconcagua) is in this area, so he was salivating over his future plans to conquer it (no mountaineering required people!).
We visited three wineries in all, the last of which (La Azul) was also a restaurant and easily our favorite. It was also our favorite meal we’ve had in South America (we’ve probably said this a lot at this point, but this one was really it!!). The setting was beautiful yet intimate, the staff was extremely friendly, and the food and wine were delicious. The owner greeted us immediately and ended up sitting down with us and telling us more about the winery and how he started running it after inheriting it from his family, even though he was initially trained as a vet. Our waitress was also extremely friendly, and after a delicious 5-course meal, she took us on a private tour and barrel tasting in their small winery. She also tried to help train our palates, and although we had a lot of heart, I think we were a lost cause. We didn’t end up getting back to our Airbnb until at least 5pm and were extremely exhausted but satisfied.
Domaine Bousquet Winery 
DiamAndes Winery 
Setting up for a wedding at the winery 
Drinking wine is hard 
La Azul 
On our last day we enjoyed a leisurely brunch, walked around Parque San Martin, and headed to the airport to fly to Chile! Overall, our stay in Mendoza was short but sweet, and we both would love to go back. In addition to drinking wine, there are also some really nice outdoors activities you can do nearby, but we didn’t end up doing them since we decided not to rent a car and knew we were about to spend the following week in a mountainous area in Chile. The city itself was still very nice and had a lot of the things we loved about Buenos Aires (outdoor restaurants, nice areas to walk around, good bars and restaurants, etc.) but on a smaller scale (plus the overall scenery of the mountains). Overall we’d give Mendoza an A+++++ and two very enthusiastic MUY BIEN’s!!
SPICY BONUS PICS
A DAVY LE GUSTA MENDOZA 
Parque San Martin 
Street of our Airbnb 
You lead an enviable life. Are you retired?
Haha, we’re still both working remotely!
Hi guys, love your blog and pictures!! Great job! I wish we could have had time to visit Mendoza. Especially seeing and hearing all about it from your perspective. Keep enjoying your travels and love that you are sharing them. We wondered what you thought of El Calafate and El Charten? Really enjoyed meeting up with you in BA and hope we can do that again if we are traveling in the same areas. Thanks again for the cool blog, Karen and Jack
Thanks for reading! We loved meeting up with you in BA as well and hope our paths will cross again! We loved El Calafate and El Chalten. El Chalten in particular was incredibly beautiful. Hopefully we will get around to a Patagonia post soon! 🙂
I wish you would at least mention working occasionally, I guess maybe this was a vacation (from your previous vacationing) and you just enjoyed the loveliness of it all. Thanks for the great pictures and descriptions!! We love you.
Haha, we do indeed work! For this trip we took one day off but worked one day as well (the rest was a weekend). Not very much to report from our work day, though! Glad you’re enjoying the pictures! Lots of love.
Ahh! Without work one wonders how you would be able to have all this fun!