The sun is shining on this Sunday morning in Mendoza and the streets are nearly deserted. The town seems dozy and uninterested in activity. It feels like a university campus at the weekend.

The final section of the bus journey from Bariloche passed much more easily and quickly for me than I expected, though I think Mike didn’t manage to sleep much. The Hangover turned out to be the second-last film rather than the last, and was followed by Due Date. Not exactly a step up in quality but at least I hadn’t seen it before, and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Then with about fifteen minutes of it left to run they turned it off without warning. That was at 12.20am, which seemed an arbitrary moment to call it a day. The bus was almost completely dark, and the sounds were of the road and the shifting of people in their seats as they tried to get comfortable.

I slept almost solidly through the night. Occasionally my arm would find a painful position against the armrest and I would half wake up and find a more comfortable corporeal arrangement, but in the 130-degree recline there were a limited number of options. The motion of the bus was restful, much more soothing than the multidimensional rocking of a boat.

Mike woke me up as we were coming into Mendoza. It’s much bigger than I expected, built on the same model as the huge cities I have been to – the centre is tree-lined and shady clean and relatively safe, and the edges are the opposite of those things. There is a large police and military presence, though not as visible as in Peru. We were told that Mendoza is the second most dangerous city in Argentina after Buenos Aires, but so far we haven’t seen anything untoward. Touch wood.

Getting off the bus and into the gathering pace of a new day was disorientating, quite like the feeling of jet lag. We got a taxi to the hostel from the bus station, and as our room wasn’t ready we had coffee and sat out the back in a courtyard area, where I am now writing this. There is a small pool that would allow several people to be in it at the same time as long as none of them wanted to swim. And they would need to have a high tolerance for dirt and a thin layer of floating dust and debris and dead ants. To my left is a little room that serves as a bar and is home to the stereo, not unlike the hostel in Iguazu, and there are tables and chairs scattered around. I am in the shade, naturally, but there are sun loungers for people to lie out in. Though it’s beyond me why anyone would want to do that.

The hostel is on the main street, Avenue Sarmiento. If you go out and turn left you get to Independence Square and the heart of the town a few blocks away, and if you go right you can reach a large park. We had lunch outside, where every now and again an apparently homeless person or child would approach us and ask for money or food, and we gave away some of the latter.

From there we set out for the park. My legs were surprisingly tired from the bus and it was slightly uphill and hot, though we were walking in the shade of trees. We walked for an hour or so and checked our position on the map and found there was about another hour to go. The end destination was a hill that offers views over the city. Discretion seemed to be the better part of valour; we turned back and aimed for the other side of town where there was a museum.

By the time we got there we had been walking for just over two hours and had a good sense of the town. There are lovely houses on the main street that look open and airy and welcoming aside from the fact that every single window is covered with the heavy protective bars I’ve seen so often before. It doesn’t send the most reassuring of messages. And indeed, the hostel requires us to wear an identifying wristband which they check as we come in.

The museum is built on the site of the former town hall, which was unfortunately levelled with most of the town and over half the inhabitants in an earthquake just over a century ago. You can see the old town hall foundations through translucent panels in the floor of the present-day museum. None of the text for the museum exhibits was translated into English, which is a very common state of affairs outside of the biggest museums in the capital cities, so our wander around was brief. There were some old engineering drawings on display which I was much taken with for their artistic as well as technical merit, and there was an early 1900s car. The car was probably the most interesting thing there, and we delayed the moment of walking over to it as if saving the best mouthful of a meal for last.

The ruins of a monastery were nearby so we went to look at those and found some very ancient walls heavily braced by ugly rusting scaffolding. The site is surrounded by a spike-topped fence and clearly someone is genuinely worried that the walls are going to fall. We headed back through the centre of town through a park named after the Chilean man-about-town Bernardo O’Higgins. Poor old Bernardo was clearly not as well regarded on this side of the Andes though, as the park was split by roads and what greenery there was was narrow and tainted by the fumes of passing traffic. Sitting underneath the trees were the sort of people who probably become a lot more proactive about their aims at night, so we ducked back out on the main street.

In the evening we had a very disappointing but still full-priced dinner where the steaks managed to be rare, medium and well-done all at the same time depending on where you happened to cut into them. Probably a two on the SSS, saved only from the lowest reaches of the scale by the fact the meat was reasonably good quality.

We retired at a respectable hour. The hostel accommodation is mostly notable for the fact that the shower, bathroom and bedroom are all in independent locations, though it is nominally an en-suite.

Yesterday morning we were up early to be collected by a bus at 8.45am for a wine tour, the most famous attraction of Mendoza, and it rather upset my carefully choreographed and sleep-maximising morning schedule by arriving at 8.40. I was on it at 8.45 exactly, but the five-minute pseudo-delay clearly irritated the driver and guide.

We had been joking the previous night about the types of people we were likely to meet on it, given that the tour was at the upper end of the scale and cost somewhere just over 100USD for the day, but in the event they were all lovely. There was an older American couple, the lady from Tennessee and the man from Maine. They had both been widowed and then met each other and got married three years ago. They were retired, and so travelled a lot. I asked the man what he had done when he was still working, and he said he worked for the US government. ‘The CIA then, I assume?’ I said. ‘Nothing that interesting,’ he answered, then declined to elaborate further.

Also pushing up the American numbers were a younger couple from Idaho who both worked in a lumber mill, and who had got engaged the previous day. They didn’t say a lot but were pleasant company. The final coupling of the octet, if I temporarily class Mike and I as a couple, were from Holland. They were both good fun and were travelling for eight months in total.

The outline for the day was to visit four places and taste the wines in each. The wineries we were visiting were all at the upper end of the scale, producing mostly fine wines rather than mass-manufactured plonk. The first was called Alta Vista, and they took us through the process of creating the wines there more or less from scratch. The grapes are picked by the functionally-named ‘pickers’, mostly migrant workers from Bolivia who are frequently badly treated. Then they are brought to a sorting table where the best are picked out for the best wines, and from there they go into the mysterious ‘de-stemmer’, a machine whose inner functioning I never learned. Then they are sent into a machine that crushes them enough to let the juices run out, and from that state a series of tanks turns the resulting mixture into wine. You can see that my understanding is still somewhat hazy. I did learn though that it’s the skin of red grapes which gives red wine its colour as the inner part is white, which strikes me as something I had previously known but forgotten.

The best wines are aged in French oak barrels, each of which costs a thousand euro or so. In themselves they are beautiful constructions, hand-made much as they have been for centuries, and we were taken down to a cellar where there were hundreds of them stacked in neat lines, the wine aging inside. It was a beautiful sight in a strange way. Throughout the day I got a sense that wine-making is an indefinitely deep and ancient art. The cellar seemed almost part of something hidden, a rare glimpse into a secret society. That particular winery paints the centre section of the barrels a rich wine colour, fittingly enough, and that just adds to the aesthetics.

We were led back upstairs for the tasting. They have a purpose-built room for it – a long table with a little sink on front of each person. Each sink for some reason I couldn’t figure out has two taps, one in the standard tap position and one almost parallel to the side of the sink itself. The guide for our tour and the guide from the vineyard both used the lower one for washing out the glasses, but both taps were fed from the same water source, so I didn’t quite see the point. Anyway, they brought out four wines and poured us all some of each and took us through them.

I was most intrigued by a chardonnay which smells light and fruity and crisp, and then tastes dry and acidic. The taste and smell do not match up at all, and they told us it was done deliberately by the wine-maker. The nickname for that wine is the Liar. We also tried some of the Malbecs, and I very much liked them. The taste is complex and hard for me to pinpoint – even with crackers and lots of water to cleanse the pallet the taste of the wines seemed to me to change over the time we sat there.

The winery itself was a beautiful place. It was a hot, bright day, deepening the greens of the grass and the vines, and the old stone  building still has an original reed roof from the design of its creation in the early part of the last century, lending it a great sense of venerability. The whole effect is enchanting, and I daydreamed about how it would be to stay there for a long period of time learning about wine and writing and not doing a whole lot of much.

I was sorry to leave it, but the next winery had its own charms. It was called Kaiken, and I loved some of the wines there. I seemed to be able to get a better sense of what they were like, as opposed to the shifting tastes at Alta Vista, though that very well may have been entirely in my head.

The event of the day, though, in an entirely unexpectedly development, was lunch. It is a good thing that I saved the uppermost levels on my steak scale, for I found a 9.9 when I wasn’t even looking for it. Maybe even a 10; I cannot see how it could be bettered.

To back up slightly: the third vineyard was where we were to have lunch, and while we were not doing any specific tasting there we would have wines that were matched with the food. I must admit that I have never given that idea much thought, though I was faintly aware such a thing was possible.

We were led into a bright room with a huge window looking out on the mountains over a carpet-swathe of green grass. At each place-setting there were six glasses, the most I have ever seen. We were served six courses in total, and with each we were served a different wine. And as before in very different contexts an entirely new range of possibility opened before me as I tasted the food and wine together. Each time the wine complemented the food in taste – where there were dark, spicy tones to the food, there were matching echoes in the wine. It is impossible to describe it without using the kind of language that people use to make fun of wine enthusiasts. It was just astounding.

With the steak we were served a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon, and tasting the meat and the wine together was like finding that all these years I had been missing out on half the experience of eating. The meat itself was perfect – perfectly medium rare, perfectly cut, perfectly presented, perfectly flavoured with a crust of raisins. There were two wines served with it, one of which was the cabernet. The other added to it too, an extra dimension to the flavour, but the cabernet was like a life-long bass-player suddenly discovering a drummer.

The entire meal was epic. Revolutionary. It was the best meal I have ever eaten. I ate more and more slowly to make it last, tasting the wines and the interplay with the food. The final course, desert, was a ‘mini apple and walnut cake’ served with a sharp blend of 70% chardonnay and 30% pinot noir, so that rather than mirroring the food it contrasted it, the symbol clash to a drumbeat. I kept the menu, and I will treasure it.

We had sixteen wines in total during the day, so the evening was a rather slow and lazy affair. We slept for a while and then went out and tripped across a Harley Davidson festival in the main square. We had seen some of them roaring around the previous day, but at the square there were several hundred of them, many driven by exactly the kind of people you would imagine drive Harleys – long hair, beards, leather jackets with slogans and gang names on the back, pudding-basin helmets. The cops kept a close eye on everything and there were hundreds of people there with their children looking at all the bikes, so it was a long way from Hunter S Thompson’s encounter with the Hell’s Angels back in the day.

After that we went for dinner, and the second major meal of the day was comically different to the first. There was a dog wandering around among the outside tables, a large Alsatian-type animal, and he was the recipient of most of my pork. Even he could hardly chew it. But we weren’t really hungry anyway. We came back to the hostel and had a drink outside in the bar area, and it was late by the time we went to bed.

And we’re back to today, which has been rather inactive. We slept late, booked two more nights in this hostel which necessitate a change of room, and got lunch on the main street. We wandered around the town a little, then came back to the hostel to tee up tomorrow’s activities. The day after that we fly back to BA for a final bash at it. For the last while here I have been writing this, and we’ll shortly venture out and see what kind of entertainment we can rustle up. There is a casino down the street which has caught my eye several times. I wonder how many winning hands of blackjack I would need to make this trip pay for itself. Hmm.

As home gets closer and closer it is more in my mind, and the conflict between wanting to keep going and the desire to be back among the people most important to me is increasing in intensity, a straight-up clash between anticipation and trepidation. It will be resolved soon. For now, let me ignore it and instead close with the text of the menu of the greatest meal I ever had.

**

Boden Ruca Malen
Tasting menu
[19-3-2011]

Appetizer

First Step
Quinoa salad with lemon zest and Arbequina olive oil, bread stave and toasted almonds.
Wine: Ruca Malen Chardonnay 2010. 100% Chardonnay. 30% of the mix ferments in new oak barrels, the other 70% in stainless steel tanks. That 30% is aged in oak barrels for eight months, then we blend it all together and bottle.
Pairing: We want to highlight the acidity of the lemon zest with the fresh and citric aromas of the wine. The sweet and toast notes of the Chardonnay combine with the sweetness in the olive oil and the toasted almonds.

Second Step
Sweet potato chips with hummus, strawberry and balsamic vinegar sauce. Pumpkin terrine on a traditional ‘milanesa’, regional cuisine.
Wine: Yauquen Malbec 2009. 100% Malbec. 30% of the wine is aged in oak barrels for six months, then blended with the rest of the wine and finally bottled. A fresh and fruity wine.
Pairing: The fresh and red berry character of our Malbec 2009 is reflected in the strawberry sauce. The acidity and soft tannins of the wine pair with the oily side of the humus and the sweetness of the pumpkin.

Third Step
Cream roasted red beet and carrot croquette served with spicy chimichurri sauce and green sprouts
Wine: Ruca Malen Syrah 2007. 95% Syrah and 5% Malbec. One year aging in oak 80% French and 20% American, then blended and bottled. A full-body wine with spicy, mint and smoky notes, as well as red fruits.
Pairing: We want to show the sweet and mineral side of the Syrah pairing it with the red beet. Combing also the spicy and herbal side of this wine with the green sprouts. Finally the ripe fruits and sweetness of the Syrah match perfectly with the acidity of this step.

Main course

Fourth Step
Grilled  beef tenderloin medallion with Spunta potatoes and Valencian onions baked in butter. Crust of raisins accompanied by sweetcorn chimichurri and smoked dry figs.
Wine: Ruca Malbec 2008. 100% Malbec. 12 months in oak barrels, 85% French and 15% American.
Kinien Cabernet Sauvignon 2002. 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Malbec. Aged for 16 months in new oak barrels 90% French and 10% American.
Pairing: This fourth step is harmonised with two wines. Due to its soft tannins, its red fruit and greasy texture, our Ruca Malen Malbec pairs with the meat and the raisins crust. On the other hand, the Kinien Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 has evolution notes that mingle with the smoky dry figs. Finally the spicy character of this wine is highlighted by the red pepper and different spices in the dish.

Pre-desert
Black tea granitee

Dessert

Fifth Step
Mini apple and walnut cake on and orange caramel and honey cream.
Wine: Ruca Malen Brut. 70% Pinto Noir and 30% Chardonnay. The must ferments in stainless steel tanks. Method Champenoise, 24 months on its lees.
Pairing: With this desert we want to pair this complex sparkling wine that, due to the 24 months on lees, has evolved with fresh bread, dry fruits and caramel notes. The acidity of this Brut is balanced by the sweetness of the dish.

Coffee/Infusions. Petit four.