Winding Down In Mendoza
This trip began with us flying to Chile to spend two nights in Santiago before going south to Patagonia for some puma trekking, five long days working on very little sleep, so now we needed to recover. Before we left for this adventure our friend in Singapore, Mike Frost, told us about how he had come to Argentina for the Rugby World Cup years ago and loved Mendoza, especially the wineries. That sold it for Anna and we all know about Argentinian beef, plus the flight to Mendoza was a little over an hour so it seemed like the obvious choice of location to unwind.
Thursday, October 16, 2025
We had spent the previous night in the Santiago Airport hotel to make this last leg of the trip easier. Our international flight to Argentina was before 10:00am, but we could just walk over from the hotel, check in, and jump aboard. We flew over the Andes once more and touched down in Mendoza, the airport itself surrounded by vineyards, but there would be a small issue while we were there. Argentina has a notoriously unstable economy so it would be difficult to find a reliable money changer and there were no ATMs anywhere, but once we took the half hour Uber ride and made it to the Diplomatic Hotel where we would be spending the next couple of nights, the receptionists were able to do currency exchanges for us.
We spent the afternoon exploring the downtown area of the city and doing some shopping, me finding a strange Argentinian copy of an old Faith No More album I loved as kid that turned out not be a bootleg, all the while taking in the tiled mosaics, passing fountains that were potentially full of wine and a car with the most parking tickets I think I have ever seen. This was all interspersed with making stop offs along the way to make the most of happy hour so Anna could sample regional wines and I could try some of the really good local beers.
After dropping off our shopping back at the hotel we both knew we would be fools not to have steak for our first meal in Argentina and apparently the place to go in Mendoza happened to be just across the road, Cordillera Vinos y Fuegos. We ordered an absolutely enormous tomohawk steak that was over a kilogram (2.2 lb) and some sides, all of which was a challenge for both of us to finish and once the meat-sweats had subsided we spent a night out in the main bar street, checking out different spots, but the real partying, especially for Anna, would be taking place the following day.
Flying to Argentina and our first day in Mendoza:
Friday, October 17, 2025
Today we would be doing what Anna had come here to do; visit wineries. This was going to be an interesting day too, because it wasn’t your average day-drinking, the first tour would start at 11:30am so there might even be some breakfast libations involved. It was also going to take us around two hours to get to the first of two wineries, but two straight full nights’ sleep didn’t make that too difficult so we jumped in the car and a couple of hours later we were at Anaia Wines. I don’t know a whole lot about wine, but apparently this was something that makes this particular winery unique:
The winery is equipped with world class innovative high-technology, that our shareholders have cross pollinated from other industries, coming up with something that is a breakthrough, unique, yet traditional.
One of our inventions has been the concrete vats without epoxy called MATES , each holding 9,600 liters (2500 gallons), for the wine’s fermentation and aging, with a unique tilting system, powered by hydraulics to assure a smooth controlled and even contact between grape solids (cap) and liquids. The main purpose is not to stress the wine by pumping it up preserving their unique natural aromas.
The moderate use of 500 liters French Oak barrels, and 4,500 liters French Oak vats, reveals the traditional tastes of the Old World, via micro-fermentation and aging, assuring the pampering of our best products.
We took a slate path up to a very interesting building surrounded 72 hectares (178 acres) of vineyards consisting of a large variety of grapes and almost immediately once inside we were handed a glass or two and the tour began. We walked past a lake and through small areas of the vineyards before going down into the cellar area and learning about the techniques used to ferment the wine in both the concrete and oak vats. I guess it was interesting enough, but that’s not what most people were there for, they just wanted to get back upstairs, sit down with a view over the lake and let the tasting begin. We were taught scent and tasting notes, something I always struggle with when it comes to both wine and oysters, as well as where on our palate we would taste it, a factor I could get. In all we tasted five different wines and then were able to order more glasses and just kick back and sip them in such a serene location. Again, I’m not someone who really appreciates wine, but it wasn’t a bad way to start the day.
Our morning and early afternoon in Anaia Wines:
Our tour ended and almost as soon as we were in the car Anna had earned a nap, waking up an hour later at our second stop for lunch and more wine, Francis Mallmann’s Siete Fuegos. It wasn’t a winery in itself, but it is renowned for its award winning wine list and also happens to be one of the 50 Best Restaurants in the World, despite being reasonably priced. According to their website, this is what we’d be being served:
Internationally acclaimed chef Francis Mallmann creates inspired regional dishes, showcasing Argentina’s world-famous meat and produce. Siete Fuegos, or “seven fires,” describes Mallmann’s collection of open-flame cooking techniques, inspired by Argentine gauchos and European migrations, and refined over hundreds of years. From our gardens and the surrounding vineyards, we proudly bring you a natural bounty of local seasonal ingredients and exceptional Argentine wines. Savor the rustic, fiery flavors of specialties like our slow-grilled rib eye, salt-encrusted fish, and grilled seasonal fruits, each paired with award-winning boutique wines.
Lunch is usually recommended before an extensive wine tasting, but on this occasion it was also welcome after one as well, even if accompanied by more drinks. We ordered more beef dishes and as you would assume they were delicious, followed by a walk around the grounds and then we were back in the car on our way to the hotel. Once we had arrived common sense dictated that maybe a nanna-nap was required for an hour or two.
We woke up fully refreshed and motivated to head out again, however, the terrible Steven Segal film (are there actually any good ones?) Fire Down Below was on TV so we were laughing, yet cringing so hard that we couldn’t possibly leave until it was over. Once done we dried our eyes, looked up new places to try, but everything seemed to be near that same bar street so we dropped into several of the same less touristy spots as the previous night. We had eaten lunch at almost 4:00pm so we weren’t hungry at all, opting instead for some small snacks, something the four women on the table next to us probably wish they had done, because they had ordered an enormous steak with the bone sticking out vertically and between the four of them there was more than half left when they gave up.
Lunch and our second and final night out in Mendoza:
They REALLY love wine
Saturday, October 18, 2025
We had one night left before we were to leave South America and due to the way Anna had initially planned this trip months ago we would be leaving again from Santiago, Chile. We had an exceptionally long sleep, checked out of the hotel and got an Uber to the airport, passing through the vineyards again directly outside the International Terminal (right). It wasn’t a late flight so once we had arrived in Santiago, passed immigration and collected out luggage, and then got a ride to our hotel and checked in it was still only about 3:30 in the afternoon. When we had been in Santiago at the beginning of this trip we had found a really cool area on the final night, Barrio Italia, that we wished we had had more time to check out so that’s where we would be spending our Saturday evening before our holiday came to a close. This place had everything we love so we wandered around looking at flea markets and vintage stores, picking up some stuff along the way before closing out our final night with an awesome seafood dinner consisting of a ton of sea urchin and some raw clams among other dishes before retreating back to the bar street for a couple of drinks. We were barely seated a few minutes when Anna received an alert on her phone about an article that was she was aware was being printed, having previously been interviewed for it, had been published in the Straits Times, Singapore’s national newspaper, however, it hadn’t done it quite as she had anticipated. Anna thought the article was going to be a piece about the Singapore National Eye Centre and the Global Ophthalmology department she heads, but instead it was an entire piece about her and how she got into volunteer work! Definitely not what we expected so the night turned into a bit of a celebration. We wouldn’t have to worry about finding a copy once we had returned either, because her dad bought ten!
A final night in Santiago that became an unexpected party:
It took us a about another 30+ hours to return to Singapore beginning the following day including another six-hour layover in Auckland where we explored more areas of the city, but once we were back in Singapore there were a lot of congratulations and celebrations. Sure, we were asked in passing how our trip was by friends and family, but they were mostly being polite, they just wanted to talk more about this:
I have to admit, I was more than a little proud too
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