The Dude does Mendoza – January 28th, 2015
Jan 30th, 2015 by rallyadmin
John heads into town to sniff around. I’m stuck at the hotel trying to define a serious programming problem that a client has on a database system that I’ve been working on for some months now. It’s a hexagon cage death match between me and the program.
John comes back at about 2PM and we’re do to leave on our scheduled wine tour at 2:30P. Stop coding and start showering. Down in the lobby by 2:30. A tour bus shows up for a wine tour but it’s for a different tour. Our bus shows up about 10 minutes later.
There’s a group of about 15 people in the group and about half are English speakers. There’s a woman from from Australia, just back from an Antarctic cruise, a Swiss woman traveling with a British man, a German couple, John and I. The rest of the group are Argentines including six 20-somethings from Buenas Aires.
The tour is supposed to stop at 2 wineries, an olive oil factory and a shop that makes liqueurs in a private home. The first stop is a winery about 20 minutes away on the bus. Out of the bus, segregate by language, “Habla espagnol? Si.” “Acqui.” “English speakers, over here.”
The tour are always the same: these are our tanks, these are our barrels, this is our cellar with aging bottles. “Any questions? No? Good. Let’s go to the tasting room.” Surprisingly, no one complains.
The whole point of the tour for the group is to get to the wine tasting. The whole point for the winery is to sell wine after the tasting. The woman who is leading the tour is very knowledgeable and explains the three wines that we taste, a white and 2 reds. Tasting done, wines bought, back on the bus.
The second vineyard is quite attractive. The entire winery is in one white building, inside and out, with exposed, black steel work on the inside. Having been built in 2007, the building is an interesting combination of the factory that makes the wine and the offices and tasting rooms that the public usually sees.
The tour is the usual tanks, barrels, bottles, tasting. Another set of three wines, 1 white and 2 red. Another pitch to buy wine (“We ship anywhere.”) Back on the bus.
The stop at the olive oil factory follows the same general theme as the wine tour. “These are your green olives. This here is your basic granite wheeled, granite table olive crusher. And this here is your usual olive oil press that separates the oil from the crushed olives.”
In all fairness, this tour explains the olive oil making process in more detail that the wine tours explain the wine making process. The young man who is our tour guide spends a lot of time telling us about how the fresh pressed oil is separated from the water a particles that come out of the pressing process. Decanters and filter presses take in the water laden cloudy liquid and out comes cold-pressed, first press extra virgin olive oil. The difference between a bottle of oil directly from the pressing and and the decanted, filtered final product is quite amazing.
Like all good tasting tours, we head for the tasting room. There are a series of plates with chunks of bread and different oils that the factory sells. We try all the different types, from plain olive oil, to rosemary or garlic or oregano or pepper flavored oils. They’re all great. (I hadn’t eaten today so I’m fighting the urge to just wolf down one or more plates.)
And, of course, behind the tasting area there’s the obligatory olive oil purchasing counter. It’s tempting to buy some to bring home but I don’t know if we’ll even get it through customs. We pass and step outside looking for the bus.
Of course, our trips always have some strange incidents. While we were waiting for the tour to start, one of the 20-somethings from Buenas Aires tells me that when I was first getting on the bus one of them thought that I was Eric Clapton to which John replied, “You haven’t seen Eric Clapton recently.” We have a good laugh. We’re pretty sure that we’re being jerked around in a cute international way. I’m surprised that they even know who Eric Clapton is.
Then the really weird part happens. Another of the boys says that when his friend said Eric Clapton, another of the boys said,”No, that’s Jeff Bridges, The Dude.” He’s referring to Jeff Bridges in the movie The Big Lebowski. This has actually happened before but I’m really convinced now that they’re putting us on until the the boy who said The Dude asks if he can have his picture taken with me. With my sunglasses on.
Sure. Whatever. Even is it is a joke, it’s all in good fun and, after the photo, he thanks me profusely. Who knows? Maybe he was sincere. They we’re all in on a very sophisticated goof if he wasn’t.
Back on the bus and off to the last stop: a private home where a woman makes assorted chocolates, marmalades and liqueurs. It’s only a 10 minute ride. We get off the bus and head into what looks like a rather modest home on a residential street that just happens to have three small tour buses parked out front.
We file in and the woman who makes the chocolates and liqueurs comes out and starts her routine. She asks everyone where they are from and what language the person speaks. When someone says English, she announces that she doesn’t speak English (which is true), ”Sorry!”
She does a very animated explanation of each of her products and soon has the whole ceowd laughing, even those of us who don’t speak Spanish. She is very good and her delivery has the look that comes from doing this every day for the better part of 20 years. Business must be good.
She offers us some bread chucks to try the marmalades on. The chocolate marmalade is great. (Hey! That’s what she called it and I have only had a couple of tiny pieces of bread with olive oil all day.)
The last stop is tasting her liqueurs. She has an assortment from chocolate flavored to spicy to red hot to absinthe. Absinthe?! Sign me up. She has a young woman pouring the samples and when she asks me what I want and I tell her absinthe, she stops pouring and calls over to the owner who apparently handles the absinthe samples.
She, of course, has a funny routine to serve the absinthe. She takes a small spoon, puts table sugar in the spoon, pours some absinthe in the glass and then into the spoon and then lights the spoon and pours the flaming absinthe back and forth between two spoons before dropping the melted sugar into the absinthe and offering the glass to me while motioning that I’ll be falling asleep soon.
I haven’t had absinthe often but I can probably member every time that I did but memory doesn’t prepare me for the shock of the first sip. It’s very strong, very flavored and has a great smell. That starts a run on the absinthe sample. First, a young Belgian man from a different bus has an absinthe and then the 20-somethings line up and all have one, too. They tell me that if The Dude has absinthe, they do, too. The Dude abides and so does the joke.
Back to the hotel and back to trying to beat the programming problem into submission. The program is winning probably because the wine and absinthe aren’t pulling their weight. John calls it an early night.
I finally give up. Down to the lobby restaurant for some spaghetti caprese, a sauce made of olive oil (how fitting!), fresh diced tomatoes, sliced green olives and garlic. Perfect end to the day.
Obi-wan