Mendoza: Saturday 29 November

Another great day touring the wineries, this time the Valle de Uco area, a tough arid place higher than the area we visited yesterday.

First of all, My Friend was reacquainted with his i-phone which he'd left in Xavier's car yesterday ... Miguel, who picked us up from the bus station when we arrived in Mendoza on Thursday, picked it up from Xavier and brought it with him when he arrived to take us on the tour today.

Miguel is very companionable & drives well. He tells us that one can buy 5 litres of syrah wine for 64 pesos straight from the barrel at some wineries - just turn up with your container (& they even wash it out for you!).

Today was overcast, threatening rain. Everyone tells us it won't rain. Mendoza has 300 days of sunshine per year. Very dry. It doesn't rain, but it stays cloudy so we don't get the views of the Andes we'd hoped for but we still have a great day of eating & drinking (no dinner tonight!).

We drive out to Valle de Uco where vineyards are planted at some of the highest altitudes in the world, in the foothills of the Andes. It takes an hour or more. Through steppe-like country, up & down hills we go & into the Tupungato wine area which also has walnuts, almonds, orchards & olives. The road is the carretera de vin & we share it with a small number of serious-looking cyclists with all the good gear. I found this website too which looks very interesting:

http://pedalingsouth.com/2011/02/magical-mendoza/

Each winery again unique. The first, Andaluna, is regarded as a high altitude winery at 1300 m. The owner died about 3 years ago; was a wealthy American, apparently owned Pepsi? The winery now has Argentinian owners which is not so common for the bigger wineries; these usually have foreign ownership. We bought a nice (cheap!) Cabernet sauvignan here which seemed to us to be very good. The girl here gave us lots of informative stuff about fermentation & ageing processes in the production of the wine; irrigation is from underground water courses from the Andes mountains.

The second winery is the well-known Salentein: an absolute temple to wine and the passion of the Dutch owner who must be worth a fortune to have built this spectacular architectural masterpiece. The sauvignan blanc & pinot noir from here were superb. The winery also has a lovely gallery.

And the third, Domaine Bousquet: an organic winery, the passion of a winemaker from Carcasonne in France. We had lunch here with matching wines, an absolute delight (menu below). There was another group celebrating a birthday & we all sang 'Happy Birthday' in harmonised English & Spanish, ha ha! And they shared the delicious birthday cake with us that had been made by the chef. Yum!

MENU (Restaurante Gaia):

• Amuse Bouche with Premium Torrontés-Chardonnay
• Starter - Grilled prawn with celery & lemon cut in julianne; with Premium Rosé (Malbec-Cabernet)
• First course - Marinated rabbit & quinoa with crispy potatoes; with Reserve Chardonnay
• Main course - Salmon ravioli with organic garden tomatoes & shaved romanito cheese (for me) & Grilled beef filet with roast potatoes, confit tomatoes & asparagus (for My Friend); with Gran Reserve Malbec
• Pre-dessert - Chef's granita
• Dessert - Cherry bread pudding, white chocolate ganache & orange in syrup; with Reserve Sweet Malbec