A Controlled Explosion of Malbec
Our Mendoza wine tours will allow you to explore the wonderful results produced by Mendoza terroir. Not just Malbec, but it is the daddy of course. This wine region has made this once almost-forgotten grape it’s own and some of the incarnations are spectacular.
Important: You may not really have a definite preference on which vineyards and wineries you visit as long as you are having a great time (that is a given) – in that case simply tell us how many days you have and let us decide your schedule.
Do vineyard views get any better than those in Mendoza?
Three or four days would give you the complete picture and you would have plenty of opportunities to overnight on different vineyards – everything we do is made-to-measure, tailored to your tastes.
Mendoza Wine Tour Overview:
- Private guides & vehicles just for you – flexibility and choice
- Technical tastings or just as pure enjoyment – and plenty of it!
- Exclusive visits to boutique and unusual wineries
- Educational activities, guidance on tasting technique & viticulture
- Vineyard visits – pruning – grape treading – blending (depending on the season)
- Overnight on vineyard properties – wine-themed hotels – urban hotels
- Meals at the spectacular wineries – dining al fresco among the vines
There are three areas you can visit if you have time, found at varying distances from the city of Mendoza. If you are staying in the center and only have one day open to you, then a visit to the wineries of Maipu and nearby would be best. Lujan de Cuyo is next furthest away and the Uco Valley is a little further down the road.
We can alter our Mendoza wine tours programs to suit you, sometimes even at the last minute…BUT many of the wineries require booking an appointment time in advance so there is only so much we can change on the day. Below we offer some suggestions on how to fill your day.
Mendoza Wine Tours
After breakfast in your hotel, we will visit the lovely adobe (mud brick) Benegas winery with a stone-clad wine cellar and is located just 20 minutes drive from the center of Mendoza. Benegas is on the edge of Maipu and the property was built in 1901 by Agustin Alvarez, the then governor of the province of Mendoza. It is one of the few old Mendoza historic sites left over from the 19th century. The method of construction provides an optimum environment for the aging of wine in both barrels and bottles as the temperature fluctuations between summer and winter are kept to a minimum.
The tasting room is very stylish, with contrasts between old-fashioned and modern touches. Here we can sample some of the fine wines that are produced in the winery. The 8-meter deep adobe cellar is also very impressive, housing some 1,200 Bordeaux-type barrels each holding 225 liters of our favorite liquid, it is a very impressive cellar that is for sure!
Next, we visit the famous winery of Trapiche. One of the oldest wineries in Argentina, Trapiche has always been at the forefront of viticulture and an important stop on Mendoza wine tours. Dating back to 1883 this winery was responsible for advancing wine-making in the region by bringing over French oak barrels and planting French varieties taken from micro-terroirs.
The lovely bodega design has been inspired by the architecture of the Italian Renaissance, with symmetrical shapes, an impressive facade, and an innovative design which combines style and overall functionality. The brickwork details and quality clearly shows the craftsmanship of the immigrants who arrived from Northern Italy during the late 1800s. They brought their expertise and skill to bear on the new wine region which greatly benefited by the advent of the railway built by the British in 1887.
The modern winery was sold by the original owners in 1970 and it fell into disuse shortly after. The Trapiche company purchased the facility in 2006 aiming to hark back to its history and the original character by restoring the structure as was, by recycling the interior fixtures and fittings where possible but also modernizing by incorporating the latest technology and equipment for the production of its high-end wines.
After the two visits, we will have a great lunch at Casa Vigil – El Enemigo. Alejandro Vigil is the proprietor of this lovely restaurant and is the influential head wine-maker at the daddy of Mendoza wineries, Catena Zapata.
After a great lunch, we will offer you another one or two winery visits, depending on time, your tastes and local conditions. This will complete your full day of Mendoza wine tours and set you up for more tomorrow.
Note: Where you stay overnight is entirely up to you, we have a large number of options with which to tempt you. Stay on a vineyard, a wine-themed hotel or in the city itself.
*Remember you don’t have to spend big bucks on hotels, we can cater for more economical lodging, the main thing is the wine experience!
Uco Valley – High Altitude Malbec
None of our Mendoza wine tours would be complete without a visit to the Valle de Uco. The Uco Valley boasts the highest vineyards in the province with many reaching to over 1,700 meters above sea level, that is some 5,500 ft. Tupungato, Tunuyán and San Carlos are the three principal wine sectors located in the Uco Valley area. The wineries here are synonymous with top quality red and white wine production, and grapes grown in this region are suitable for prolonged aging. The typical wine varieties of this area are Semillon and Malbec, but Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Tempranillo, and Syrah have been recently implanted, all with excellent results.
As you know these are not the highest vineyards in Argentina but they are certainly the most prestigious and famous and are still very high in the list of worldwide vineyards. Make sure you get your fill of the best examples while on a Mendoza wine tour with us.
Your first visit this morning will be to the Corazon del Sol winery which produces a range of excellent Malbec and Grenache-based wines which showcase Argentina’s high altitude terroir. Madaiah Revana arrived in Argentina relatively recently in 2008 with the view of adding to his family of estate winery portfolio which includes the Revana Family Vineyard in Napa Valley and also the Alexana Winery in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
Our next visit will be to the famous Clos de Los Siete group of wineries with its distinctive 7 pointed star logo. Clos de Los Siete is a collection of vineyards totaling 850 hectares with altitudes between 1,000 and 1,200 meters above sea level in Vista Flores, Tunuyan, some 120 km to the south of the city of Mendoza. The slopes in this region have a north-east orientation providing great exposure to the sunlight angles that are prevalent in the southern hemisphere.
Clos de Los Siete’s first came to life in 1998. The project is the brainchild of flying winemaker Michel Rolland, who acts as owner, wine advisor and consultant in many prestigious wineries all over the world.
The views are just spectacular in the Uco Valley 
The mayan pyramid-inspired Catena Zapata winery
Now we are getting hungry so we will head for lunch at Andeluna. This winery is at the heart of a 200-hectare vineyard estate. The classical architecture and high-tech winemaking facility both contrast with the grand landscape of Tupungato mountain. At Andeluna visitors will enjoy a superb dining experience in a beautiful restaurant, tastefully decorated and with lovely views.
Lujan de Cuyo and more Malbec joy!
None of our Mendoza wine tours should ignore the ancestral and traditional home of Argentine wine and especially its superb Malbec. In 1852 at the request of the Argentine government Michel Pouget, a French agronomist bought Malbec to Lujan de Cuyo just south of Mendoza from Cahors in France. The grape quickly established itself and found the ideal terroir, today Argentine Malbec is world-famous and Lujan became the first Denomination of Origin (DOC) in all of the Americas. Malbec from this region has a very intense, dark cherry red color, which can appear almost black. It presents mineral expressions, with black fruit and sweet spices particularly standing out. So let us try some!
For a tour of the Lujan de Cuyo area, we will start by visiting the vineyards and the winery of Matervini. This is a relatively new project headed up by Santiago Achaval and Roberto Cipresso, the owners of the highly regarded Achaval-Ferrer Winery. After a tour and tasting at this superb facility, we move down the road a little to one of the most famous wineries in the Americas.
The Catena Zapata winery is very recognizable for its seemingly out-of-place Mayan pyramid style building in the middle of the vines. But this place has been pivotal and influential in the development of the Argentina wine industry with the family introducing European style methods in producing high altitude wines.
“The 2011 Malbec Catena Zapata Adrianna Vineyard is a Malbec from the eponymous vineyard in Gualtallary close to 1,500 meters altitude from the plots where the soil is rich in calcium carbonate. The sense of place here is tremendous, it transfers you to the Gualtallary vineyards at the foot of the Andes with its stony, chalky soils. There is a sense of harmony and subtlety like you rarely see. The flavors stay forever on the finish and the lips are salty. Otherworldly.”
(Excerpt from August 2015 – The Wine Advocate.)
Then it is time for lunch at the spectacular Melipal. This is one of our favorite places to have lunch, the 5-course meal with wine pairings is to die for. You can see Gary and his wife Malka looking pretty pleased with the experience below. The staff here are very attentive and the small restaurant capacity gives you that exclusive feel that is hard to come by these days.
There are so many options on our Mendoza wine tours that they are difficult to list. In fact, we can organize and add almost anything you wish (according to the season of course) – cooking classes, wine blending, make your own wine, pruning and working in the vineyard, active adventures on bikes or horseback and much more. The best thing is to talk to us and we can get a sense of what you like – then design the best schedule for you.
