I havent posted lately. I got a very, very nasty food poisoning bug in Mendoza the night before we left for Buenos Aires. Fever all night, on and off fever for a couple of days, and I couldnt eat anything. So I didnt have the energy or enthusiasm for blogging. The last of the symptoms seem to be finally clearing up, now.
On our last full day in Mendoza we did a tour in the afternoon that consisted of visiting a small family run olive oil factory, a traditional winery, and a modern winery.
The olive oil tour was interesting in that I finally found out what the difference is between regular, virgin, and extra virgin olive oil. It all has to do with the quality of the olives, level of acidity, and resulting amount of bad saturated fats in the oil. We got a brief description of the processing, and we led to a tasting room. There were olive oils with different flavours added light garlic or oregano, and we tasted them on bread. Of course the tasting room was also the sales counter.
At the traditional winery they described the processing for making sweet wine the old fashioned way. Processing steps like clarifying the wine are done by repeatedly transfering the wine between containers, which takes much longer, whereas the modern methods use chemical and filters. Also, anything like sugars and alcohol that are added to the wine to make different types of sweeter or stronger wine (muscatel for example) are derived from the earlier processing steps of the grapes used to make the wine, rather than being obtained externally.
In the tasting room we got to try at least four different small glasses of wine, including the stronger ones. There was a bucket for dumping the wine you didnt like, but instead the people in the group just gave it to me. Hey, I wasnt driving.
The modern winery was surrounded by a large vineyard, and had the huge metal containers for making the wine and rows of wooden casks in the basement for aging the wine. We tried three different wines in the tasting room. I found out names of wines I liked that Id never heard of before, like Torontes and Carmenere.
After the tour Celene and I went to the main street in Mendoza for restaurants for dinner. Meat is very big in teh Argentinian diet, and many places have tons of meat grilling in the window. A thing to note though, the portions are MASSIVE. Literally twice what you would expect in Canada. Better to order one dish and share it.
The next day was a travel day to Buenos Aires, and we didnt do anything else as I was quite sick.
On our last full day in Mendoza we did a tour in the afternoon that consisted of visiting a small family run olive oil factory, a traditional winery, and a modern winery.
The olive oil tour was interesting in that I finally found out what the difference is between regular, virgin, and extra virgin olive oil. It all has to do with the quality of the olives, level of acidity, and resulting amount of bad saturated fats in the oil. We got a brief description of the processing, and we led to a tasting room. There were olive oils with different flavours added light garlic or oregano, and we tasted them on bread. Of course the tasting room was also the sales counter.
At the traditional winery they described the processing for making sweet wine the old fashioned way. Processing steps like clarifying the wine are done by repeatedly transfering the wine between containers, which takes much longer, whereas the modern methods use chemical and filters. Also, anything like sugars and alcohol that are added to the wine to make different types of sweeter or stronger wine (muscatel for example) are derived from the earlier processing steps of the grapes used to make the wine, rather than being obtained externally.
In the tasting room we got to try at least four different small glasses of wine, including the stronger ones. There was a bucket for dumping the wine you didnt like, but instead the people in the group just gave it to me. Hey, I wasnt driving.
The modern winery was surrounded by a large vineyard, and had the huge metal containers for making the wine and rows of wooden casks in the basement for aging the wine. We tried three different wines in the tasting room. I found out names of wines I liked that Id never heard of before, like Torontes and Carmenere.
After the tour Celene and I went to the main street in Mendoza for restaurants for dinner. Meat is very big in teh Argentinian diet, and many places have tons of meat grilling in the window. A thing to note though, the portions are MASSIVE. Literally twice what you would expect in Canada. Better to order one dish and share it.
The next day was a travel day to Buenos Aires, and we didnt do anything else as I was quite sick.
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