Bodegas Mini-Tour

It´s gotten really cold here -- apparently the wind shifted direction last night and is now coming from Antarctica, so the whole country is pretty much caught up in a cold snap. I was feeling better today, but still not 100% so I decided to take the wineries by minibus tour rather than renting a bicycle and going under my own steam.

Since it was Saturday, most of the major bodegas were closed, so we visited a medium-sized traditional winery and then a small organic winery. The countryside is pretty barren this time of year, since the harvest took place between Feb and April, so I didn´t take any pictures of grapes or vines or anything like that.

At both wineries the tour guides explained how the equipment works, and where the wine ferments, etc. The more traditional winery aged their wines in giant oak barrels, which have to be cleaned by hand once the wine is bottled. Here are some of their 100-year old wine barrels:

The person who does the cleaning is slipped into the barrel at the base, where the spout, etc is located in the photo. Apparently one of the major job qualifications is to have shoulders narrow enough to fit through the slot!! We tasted some wine, of course, with the Malbec varietal being by far the best of the ones we tried.

After the wineries we did a quick visit to a chocolate factory on the way back, which was not the most interesting thing ever, but it definitely made me hungry:

Mmmm...industrial-sized vat of chocolate....