Mendoza, South America's Napa Valley

We have recently returned from 3 nights in Mendoza and it was not long enough! As soon as we arrived on Thursday afternoon the hotel staff handed us 2 chilled glasses of Torrentes white wine and all thoughts of busy Buenos Aires cleared out of our minds. It was sunny and warm and we had a great lunch on the terrace of the restaurant. The food during our entire stay was fantastic at restaurants like Francis Mollman's 1884.

That night, we attended a wine tasting at the lodge. We tried 3 types of wine - 2 red, 1 white - and played a guessing game of "essences" found in wine. Smelling the little bottles with various essences turned out to be quite difficult! Some examples we had were cloves, grapefruit, grass, coffee, black pepper. Sounds easy but it's not. The lodge grows the bonarda seed grape and sells it to other vineyards for producing wine. It only makes 2,000 bottles a year of its own for its guest to drink while staying there. The bonarda grape is deep ruby red and has a full taste.

On Friday we visited two bodegas or wineries - the first was Vistalba by Carlos Pulenta and the second was Achaval Ferrer. We got to taste wine directly from a French oak barrel, which is what our tour guide is pouring here.

Somehow, Don woke up early and took a mountain bike ride around the estate before our Saturday spa day began. And it was amazing. We had a treatment together called Winetherapy that lasts for 2.5 hours! We had a 50-minute massage, a crushed Malbec seed scrub, a Bonarda red wine bath, and a Torrentes wine wrap. Pure indulgence. We miss Mendoza already and are thinking about returning when the grapes are ripening, even though we found the weather so perfect now.

We just sent an email slideshow of our pictures from the trip. Post a comment here if you didn't get it.