A Lot of Wine

We were a little delayed arriving at our friends’ place due to the messing around with the gearbox and it was early evening by the time we squeezed through the pergola and parked both vans on the lawn. They were very excited to see us and waved us straight into the kitchen, where a fire already roared in the hearth and the table was covered in homemade empanadas waiting to be cooked.

Rosa instantly sprang into action, offering everyone drinks and starting to cook the food. Carlos, Ben and Annie all introduced themselves and began chatting. In true Argentinian fashion, Carlos plonked an enormous lump of some kind of sausage on the table and, beaming from ear to ear, announced, “Mortadella!”

Rosa reappeared at his side brandishing handfuls of empanadas, and they were delicious. She had even made me my own special vegetarian ones, a theme that would continue throughout the weekend. We ate around the fire and enjoyed some wine, far too much food and excellent company. It was nice that we could all speak passable Spanish and it was one of the reasons we had felt able to invite Ben and Annie, as we knew they could easily make conversation.

In the early hours of the morning, we headed to bed after being shown all the different bathrooms and showers we could use. Despite being a fair distance from the city centre, it was a loud and busy road. Even in the middle of the night, there was still a surprising amount of traffic. It was funny though, as I mentioned to Lee, that I didn’t actually sleep too badly. I think there is something in the security of being on private land where you know that passing traffic is irrelevant. When wild camping, cars in the night are something we pay attention to because you are more vulnerable and you don’t know if they will bother you. Ninety-nine percent of the time they don’t, but I think it’s always there in the back of your mind and it’s hard to fully relax with unknown vehicles driving close by.

In the morning, we headed inside for coffee and mate. I had coffee and enjoyed it with a selection of homemade cakes that Rosa had already baked that morning. Ben and Annie are not normally early risers, but our hosts looked a little saddened by their absence and so we roused them from the van to come and eat cake with us. Lee had excused himself to go and watch yet another football match that his team would inevitably lose, and I chatted with Rosa instead. She showed me her chilli pepper plant with the chillies we had eaten when we first met them up in the mountains. She promised to give me some before we left and also shared the recipe for the rather delicious salsa she had made herself.

While we talked about plants, Carlos busied himself with ‘Pollo al Disco’. A translation is hardly necessary here; it is literally chicken cooked in a huge disc-shaped pan. Of course it was done outside over the fire, like most of their food. I believe a litre of wine and a litre of cream went into the sauce and, while I’m really not keen on eating chicken, I did give the peppers, onions and sauce it was cooked in a taste. I’ve got to admit, it was utterly delicious. If there was ever a time I would eat chicken, this would probably have been it, but Rosa had me covered.

They began to bring out the rest of the food: plates of bread rolls, salsas and so on. There was even an enormous stack of savoury stuffed pancakes made specially for me. We contributed a potato salad as we felt we should at least do something, but it really wasn’t needed. We ate with two of their daughters, one of whom ran a little vegetable shop out of the corner of the garden. They were a truly lovely family and I have never felt so welcome in a stranger’s garden.

We tried to make a dent in the 20 litres of wine that Carlos had supplied and he, in turn, drank most of the bottle of Jameson’s we had brought with us. We were having the loveliest evening until we noticed a trail of blood on the floor and traced it back to one of the young greyhound dogs. We let them know it was bleeding badly; it looked like it had perhaps tried to eat and pass a chicken bone. The rest of the night was somewhat derailed by this. Carlos went to oversee a football match — he rents out a pitch to local kids — and Rosa and her daughters were obviously upset by the dog and didn’t know what to do. It was a Sunday after all. Unfortunately, the situation was decided for us anyway as the dog died just a few hours later.

It put a bit of a downer on the evening, needless to say. We didn’t really know how to react. Carlos was more indifferent and Rosa followed his lead. It wasn’t really our place to say anything else. Still, we finished off around the fire enjoying a few more drinks before having a slightly earlier night.

With the weekend over, it was time to move on. We told them we would be leaving that day and they both looked a little sad and asked if everything was ok. We assured them it was and that we just needed to keep moving. They had kindly let us fill our water tanks as well as have proper hot showers, and I joined Rosa inside that morning for a final slice of cake before we left. This time, to her delight, I went with mate instead of coffee. She was very excited to give me a spare mate cup and a bag of yerba too. As chance would have it, Annie had a spare straw and so I was all set. With the quality of coffee in Argentina, it was probably just as well. We packed up the van, stowing away a big bag of chillies as well as my new cup. Then we said our goodbyes and told them we’d be back this way next year and would visit again. They seemed over the moon at the prospect and I too will look forward to it immensely.

For now though, we weren’t done drinking.

Argentina is of course famous for its wine and this region in particular is famous for Malbec. Just a twenty-minute drive away is Maipú, a place where you can park up and take a bike tour around the neighbouring vineyards, of which there are many. We already had our bikes and pulled over at the side of the road for the others to pick up rentals. It turned out though that not only were they quite expensive, but it also wasn’t some idyllic cycle trail through the vineyards; it was mostly along the main road. We decided therefore that we’d drive and camp somewhere close by where we’d mainly be able to walk around instead.

We were provided with a small map and set off to the first stop, Bodega Trapiche. We had been warned that this was one of the more expensive vineyards and it certainly proved true when we heard that the tour was nearly £30 per person. They had us cheapskates covered though. The budget version involved being given a wine glass and a card. They had a wine dispensing machine with about six different bottles to choose from. You could select a tasting, a small glass or a larger one. It was all automatically dispensed, with the prices displayed on the screen. Then, glass in hand, you were free to wander the grounds.

I found the loophole by luck when the wine I chose had an empty bottle. The chap hurried over to replace it and was absolutely in love with Ruby. He topped up my glass quite generously to where it should have been and swapped out the empty bottle for the new one. He was also rather amused when I managed to find the next one that was nearly empty and blag myself another nice refill.

After a short wander around the grounds, we headed off to the next vineyard. Tempus Alba’s tour was self-guided. A quick walk around took you to a viewpoint over the vineyards and then inside to see the fermentation tanks and barrels. We ended up sitting on the roof terrace enjoying their wine tasting ‘menu’, which featured several different reds as well as some complimentary nibbles. By this point we were getting a bit peckish and thought perhaps we’d go to the food truck we’d spotted in the car park. Being quite a touristy activity, however, it came with tourist prices and so instead we stood in the car park all eating cold leftover hasselback potatoes out of a container.

After this little snack, we headed to number three across the road. A small family-run bodega, El Cerno was definitely a little less upmarket. We were greeted by some rather haggard-looking dogs as we made our way inside. We decided to do the tour here as it was included in the tasting menu. After paying, we sat outside and were brought our first wine, an incredibly sweet rosé. It was followed by two more equally sweet wines which, if I’m honest, we weren’t really enjoying. It also seemed they had completely forgotten about the tour. Then, with the final glass, a girl came over and asked if we’d like to look around. She even did the mini tour in English and showed us the machinery, the cellars and took us inside an old concrete fermentation tank where we stood looking up at the stained red line around the walls that marked the level of countless past harvests. To top it off, the final wine was actually very, very nice and so what had started out as a bit of a disappointment ended rather well.

Now we had to drive to the next set. For anyone thinking we probably shouldn’t have been driving, we were ok at this point. Tasting glasses are not regular glasses after all.

Next on our list was Bodega Esencia. We were getting towards the end of the afternoon and there weren’t many people around, so we had a nice little tasting that included a rather good sparkling wine as well as an orange wine. Orange wine, as I have now been educated, is made by allowing white grapes longer contact with the skins, therefore giving the wine a darker colour. We were also given some rather lovely alfajores to eat alongside it and even bought a bottle to take away.

With the afternoon winding to a close, we made it to the fifth and final vineyard. Vistandes is a modern winery where the owner likes to collect art and sculptures. The entrance indeed felt more like an art gallery than a vineyard. We booked ourselves onto the final tour and went out onto a large balcony overlooking the vines where we sipped sparkling wine with a group of people. It was quite a big group, but somehow we seemed to end up with our own guide anyway. She showed us around and even took us to the private cinema the owner had built in the basement. We bought one final bottle of wine to take away with us before finally dragging our attention away from wine and onto where we were going to sleep.

We had planned to stop at a restaurant just down the road that apparently accepts campers. It would have been a good option as it was only a couple of minutes away and, by this point, Lee probably shouldn’t have been driving anymore. When we arrived at the gates though, they were shut. We did manage to speak to the owner who explained they were renovating and therefore not officially open. She said we could come in if we had no other option, but the large pack of dogs at the entrance was enough to put us off. In the end, we drove back to our old faithful parking spot in the park. We knew that there at least we’d get a quiet night to sleep off all the wine.

Back in the park, it was nearly time for us to go our separate ways. However, snow on the border closed the pass, forcing our friends to wait another two days. We stayed with them, enjoying one last football match in Che Picadas — they enjoyed the football, I enjoyed the mojitos — before the snowstorm in the mountains finally cleared and it was time to say goodbye for real. We had spent two weeks together hanging out and it had genuinely been great. For them, it was the end of their South American trip as they headed to Santiago to sell the camper. For us, it was time to put a new point on the map.