Mendoza

First of all we want to tell everyone Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.   We miss you all and hope your holidays are filled with the spirit of the season.  

We will be spending Christmas, our 8th anniversary and New Years Eve in Mendoza, a large city with about one million living in or near the city. Actually our 8th will be spent hiking in the Andes in hopes of spotting Aconcoqua should the Gods be so good to us.  Mendoza  is located at the foothills of the Andes and appears, to new arrivals like us, to be a veritable garden of eden with everything imaginable growing in abundance.  But the fact is that the inhabitants have transformed what was once desert into an agricultural giant with the help of the constant flow of Andes glacial waters.  

The city itself is shaded from the desert heat by thousands of giant sycamore trees that line the streets and  are watered via canals  built of concrete and river stone.   To cross the street nearly anywhere within the large metropolitan sprawl one must step over these canals either literally or by using the concrete paths provided at the street corners.   The water rushes down one canal or another watering the trees like crops throughout each day.  

The combination of the arid climate and abundant water made the desert prime for vineyards and Mendoza is becoming a wine mecca.  Tours of the wineries are a big business.  When one drives in any direction in the surrounding countryside the vineyards spread along the highways and dirt roads everywhere. Olives, garlic, lemons, etc., are cash crop of the area too.  So as you look out over what was once an inhospitable and harsh land it becomes apparent that a great deal of effort has been put forth to alter the landscape so completely.   Agriculture brought prosperity to this region and now with the recognition of its wines it is poised to boom.  

We visited a number of the wineries from small family operated businesses producing four to five thousand liters a year to large wineries producing up to three million liters a year.  In spite of their size they are all fascinating to visit.  The small, family vineyards produce wines the old fashioned way and sell exceptional wines. The large wineries employ scientific methods including laboratories on site and satellite imaging of their vineyards and sell mega quantities of exceptional wines.  But of course if you look closely you can see where this is all going because the small wineries can't compete against the giants.