Last Saturday, a few friends invited me to come along on a bodega-hopping adventure. Bodega, just in case you weren’t sure, is the fancy word for winery/vineyard here.  We had a rental car (a zippy little Ford Fiesta) and a full day to go taste wines in the Mendoza region.

My friend is a sommelier in training, so she knows her stuff. We started on our trip heading to San Carlos (a fairly far-away land from the ciudad) to O’Fournier. The trip was WELL worth it. The bodega itself is breathtaking; it’s super modern but also really uniquely designed to take advantage of the use of gravity during the winemaking process. Plus, it looks like something you’d see an evil villain living in a James Bond movie, or perhaps Dr. Evil’s summer home.

Mr. Bigglesworth loves the view.

It is also home to the largest wine cellar in all of North and South America combined. Pretty freaking cool. The bodega uses its cellar also as an art gallery, so it makes it a bit more interesting than staring at barrels of wine.

Best place to take shelter in an earthquake?

 Lunch at O’Fournier was good, but we had heard it was great, so it was a bit disappointing. This was mostly due to the portion sizes (a shot-glass of two different appetizers were called “two courses”, for example). Still, it was tasty and well done. And the view was spectacular.

After O’Fournier, we made our way to La Azul, but we were 20 minutes late. Turns out, they’re not so much on Argentine time when they’re waiting for you. They were gone, and not a soul was in sight. We knocked on a door of a neighboring house to see if they knew if anyone was there, and they couldn’t help us. Ah well.

Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?

Backup plan: We went to Jean Bousquet, who were very kind and received us as well as they could receive a surprise visitor. We wine-tasted with the staff and had a great day.

Our drive back to the city was interesting, as we missed a main road entrance and ended up on a dirt desert road going up and down hills and having to get out and push the car across a few points. It was really, really fun though. It may or may not have had anything to do with the alcohol. But it was a great day, with a beautiful sunset, and a great time with new friends.