We woke to rain. Light rain, just enough to ruin Lorna’s hair. I, as usual, woke far earlier than Lorna so I took the time to plan something to do for the day. Because we were checking out of Finca Adalgisa and heading south to Valle de Uco (Uco Valley), I wanted to find one or two places to visit along the way.

Despite our visit being in the Argentinian springtime when the tourist population density is light, there didn’t appear to be much available on short notice. Still, I did manage to get us a lunch and pairing appointment at Ojo de Agua, and a tour at Susana Balbo, further to the south of Lujon de Cuyo.

Before leaving Finca Adalgisa, we had the obligatory breakfast, which was not more or less unspectacular than the previous morning. After finalizing our account with the hotel and saying goodbye to my feline friends, we headed out.

Final thoughts on Finca Adalgisa:

• It is very difficult to find unless you know exactly where it is. The front gate is normally closed and is not marked. On our first day, we drove up and down the street trying to find it, and had to call their number to get someone to stand out on the street to show us where it was, and to open the gate to let us in. For new guests, this can be problematic.

• The option of dining in at the Wine Room was a refreshing alternative to having to find some place in town to eat. This was especially a relief for us the first night after having traveled with no sleep, in the same clothes, for 30 hours.

• The community of cats to pet was a definite plus for me. Lorna couldn't care less about the cats, but did get some amusement from how the creatures adopted me as one of their own.

• The “garden in the middle of the city” feel was a definite plus. Between the architecture and design, we could tell that they had put a lot of work into making the hotel a boutique resort that wasn't easily forgotten.

Before leaving Lujon, we made a stop a a local Western Union branch. I had arranged a transfer of money to myself, initially in the hope of getting the better “blue dollar” exchange rate from our US dollars. When I got there, it turned out that we only got the official rate, which is essentially half the value of the “blue dollar” rate. Evidently, we would need to find a black market “cambio” to exchange crisp benjamins for AR pesos at the higher rate. More on this issue as we continue our journey and need more cash.

Ojo de Agua

We headed south toward the southernmost part of Lujon, eventually finding the gravel road that hosted driveways for several bodegas. We followed a gravel road for 5km to get to Ojo de Agua, behind a camioneta (some sort of cargo transport vehicle) that was moving at a seizurely 10 kph.

Upon arrival, we found the first location where nobody spoke English. Between my limited Spanish and our host’s limited English, we were able to get most points across.

We were seated in a private room with a limited view of the Andes but it would have been nicer to be seated outside on the patio. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option due to the wet weather. I wouldn’t want that taken as a complaint, this experience was the best so far in the early stages of our journey.

Also, we would have taken some photos of the property but we could hardly see the mountains from across the vineyard because of the rain.

Overall impression of Ojo de Agua: It may be a bit of a challenge to get to it, but considering there were many others that were equally remote and accessible by gravel roads, this is probably typical for the area. Still, they were very accommodating for a short-notice lunch request and the food, service, and wine were well worth the visit. 

Susanna Balbo

Beautiful property, only 15 minutes away from our lunch at Ojo de Agua. Upon arrival, we were assigned to our guide, Marcos. Our tour group of the property was mixed: two from South America (they didn’t specify where), one woman from Israel who has lived in Argentina for five years, and us. It would have been easier for the guide to just do the tour in Spanish if it were not for the two gringos (us) for whom English translation was needed.

Marcos took us on a tour of the facility, with samples of wine at various intervals. The Malbec was good and we bought a couple of bottles, but nothing was wow-worthy.

Overall impression of Susana Balbo: Beautiful facility, knowledgeable tour guides, and available for a short-notice reservation. The wines were good and we walked away with three bottles of what we liked, but none of the wines filled a “must have” niche in our collection.

Finca Azul

Leaving Lujon, we entered Uco Valley, toward our evening destination, Finca Azul. The hotel, constructed of solid concrete, appeared to be sturdy enough to withstand anything nature could throw at it. The interior design of the common areas was beautiful, but that couldn't hide the fact that the bones of the place were of solid concrete.

At reception, we were brought to our room, which was also floor-to-ceiling concrete. Despite the solidity, noise from upstairs and outside the room appeared to carry quite well.

The room had a back patio with a western view of the Andes at sunset.

Part of the service included supper. The dinner was Arabic themed, with tabbouleh, baba ganoush, hummus, kibbeh, stuffed grape leaves, and a dozen other middle-eastern treats. At one point, our table was completely covered with small plates. We would have provided photographic evidence of it but we had made such a mess of processing the amazing food that it would have looked like the “after” photo of one of those medieval feast gluttony events.

Lessons learned about planning bodega visits

If you have a list of places that you want to visit, do the planning way ahead of time. Don't just show up and hope that a nicely structured schedule will be easy to put together.

When we initially approached Plan South America about this adventure, the idea was to get a sampling of all the major wine regions between Mendoza and Salta. This is great if we just wanted a summary, but at the expense of only being in a particular region for a day at a time. This turned out to be woefully insufficient if we wanted to visit a list of specific bodegas.

• Bodega Salentin

• Alpasion Wines

• Zorzal Wines

• Andeluna Cellars

• Domaine Bousquet

• Superuco

• Bodega La Azul

• Bodega Familia Zuccardi

• Bodega Corazón Del Sol

The idea was to make some appointments, whether online or by phone, and creating a schedule that would allow us to visit some of them. Consider the logistics of creating a schedule:

• Time in region - Realistically, three to five bodegas is the most that can be fit into a day schedule without risking appointments overlapping or being late
  

• Dates of availability - Some bodegas were only open certain days of the week

• Times of availability - Because appointments are required, bodegas had a limited number of time slots per day in which to accommodate guests. Additionally, these slots tend to fill up quickly, even in the off-tourist season.
  

• Time on site - An appointment can last from one to three hours, depending on whether the service is a pairing experience, a tour, or just a wine tasting
  

• Travel time between bodegas - While some bodegas are next door to each other, some may require a longer drive, which would affect the schedule

• Language - Most bodegas offer language options, which is not a super important factor unless there is a tour involved and you want to understand what the guide is saying
  

What actually happened was that the requests for availability that I sent either went unanswered or the response was that there was no availability. This was my fault for waiting until the day prior to do this.

To compensate, I arranged another private tour, this time for Valle de Uco. Tour operators have back-channels and often have a good handle on creating a schedule where nothing appeared to have been available.

Next up - Day 4: Tour of Uco Valley

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