1 day wine tasting in Mendoza.

[PhilipDT]

What's the best way to do it? Don't want to drive for obvious reasons, don't want to be on a big tour with other people. Are there private tours? Can we hire a remis for the day and just have him drive us to various wineries?

 

[sgarlow]

I'm planning a trip myself and TripAdvisor forums have a bunch of recommendations for private drivers. Two friends recently did an Ampora wine tour, which is pricey, but I think it's a pretty small group (confirm that though, I'm not positive).

 

[NomadInBA]

When I was visiting Mendoza with my family we had a private wine tour with Javier (http://www.plazaitalia.net/en/wine-tours.html) and I was extremely pleased with the tour. Javier is an extremely knowledgeable and friendly guide. He provided a van for us and we visited 4 wineries (two big ones and two small family operations). The tour included a 5 course gourmet lunch at Ruca Malen with wine pairing with each course which was excellent.

His tours are very popular and I would recommend contacting him before you arrive to check availability.

The best vineyard that we visited is called Domaine St. Diego and is a very small operation but produces some simply outstanding wines that you won't find on sale here in BA (I brought a box of the stuff back with me). Even if you won't take his tour you should visit this one.

Hope this helps.

 

[sgarlow]

Reporting back in case it's helpful. We did a tour with Ampora Wine Tours and it was absolutely fantastic (and I'm not usually a person to rave about tours). We signed up for a group tour, but got lucky, and it was only the two of us. I wrote about it on our blog, for anyone who's interested: http://www.stephandben.com/2012/05/mendoza-most-wonderful-wine-tour.html

 

[jb5]

We did a private tour with Trout and Wine. Their guide was extremely knowledgable. One thing we noticed is none of the tours poured super premium wines. I do think a Remis might be best if you want to taste high end wines.

 

[sgarlow]

I don't know what count as super premium wines, but we seemed to be tasting one top of the line option at each of the vineyards we visited (it seemed to break down into one lower-tier wine, two middle tier and one top tier).

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

Just saw a blog called 18 Hours in Mendoza. Was written by a travel writer. Can't find it at the moment. Perhaps someone else can.

I lived in Mendoza for a year. Check out Vines of Mendoza. It's a tasting house in the middle of the city. Excellent selection and can recommend good tours - all in English.

Aside, make sure you eat at 1884, restaurant by Francis Mallman.

 

[jb5]

Maybe a reserva, but we didn't see any tours getting any winery's top end.

 

[brandon]

We did the Ampora wine tour last Oct. I'm usually not a fan of tours but thought it was very good and definitely recommend it. The group was 8 people and we tasted a good range of wines at 4 wineries plus a great lunch.
We had a rental car and drove around other days, definitely not as smooth or easy as the tour. If you're only there a short time, go with a tour to not waste time getting lost or finding that places are closed or you have to wait for a tour.