Thus when one of Gaby’s brothers had to go to Neuquén for a family matter we joined up with him. The drive to the city of Neuquén took a total of seven hours from Coronel Suárez. We started by driving through the city of Bahía Blanca, then headed east on highway 22. The climate changed from the flat humid pampas and got steadily drier and drier until we were driving through a sort of rolling mountain dry desert. In two places the highway was blocked by locals protesting against the government (unfortunately a very common thing in Argentina). In one place by luck we arrived at a time when traffic was allowed to pass and we passed through the pile of burning tires and stacked ruined cars without incident. The protesters were living in tents on the side of the road. At the second road block, erected by striking school teachers on a the bridge which enters Neuquén city we were not allowed to pass so we had to turn around and drive significantly out of the way to take a back road into Neuquén city.
We spent the first day in Neuquén exploring the city and helping Gaby’s brother with family things.
The second day we were up early and headed to the wine region.
The area has 4 wineries all of which are located about an hour north of the city of Neuquén in the town of San Patricio del Chañar. The whole area is part of the river valley of the Rio Negro which is created by snow melt from the Andes. This water in this river valley has created a large agricultural region in middle of the southern desert. The area is full of fruit plantations of all types in addition to wine grapes. It is called the route of Wine, Apples and Dinosaurs and is very picturesque.
The first winery we visited was Bodega Familia Schroeder. It was the only winery that had a tasting fee but the amount was subtracted from our wine purchase. The winery was new, modern, and very tastefully done. We took a scheduled tour with mostly Argentineans and a very nice Canadian couple. The cellar had dinosaur bones which had been uncovered during the construction of the subterranean caves. It was a top notch facility, the people nice and the wine yummy. The winery also has a restaurant on site.
The next winery we visited was Bodega NQN, up the road from Schroeder. Also modern and with a large financial investment, NQN looked somewhat like Opus One in Napa as it is submerged in the ground. Our tour was with a Dutch couple and was also very impressive. The two wines we tried were good and it also has a restaurant/bar.
We then visited Bodega del Fin del Mundo. We had high expectations from this winery as we had read good things about it in the US but we found it to be a large scale wine making factory which was cold and impersonal. The tour was nice and our guide was knowledgeable but the place was huge and we never really got to feel good about the experience. The winery has wines for sale across all price ranges and we got to try lots of them. They ranged from ho-hum inexpensive wines to really fantastic reserve wines.
The last winery we visited was the highlight of our trip. We bought a bottle of Familia Grittini Malbec at a supermarket the night before and found it to be a great value for the price. At the end of the day we searched out the winey and found it at the end of a dirt road. We found the owner and the winemaker working crush with the crew and introduced ourselves. Both the owner and the winemaker took the time to give us a tour let us try tank and barrel samples of their upcoming still and sparkling wines. It was a fantastic experience and they were very courteous hosts. The winery itself is a work in progress as Mr. Grittini is building it as he goes but the experience was really special.
Being able to visit these beautiful wineries, with their fantastic views and locations was an experience that Gaby and I enjoyed tremendously. We drank some really nice wines and met some terrific people. To anyone living in Argentina or visiting from abroad we would wholeheartedly recommend visiting the still relatively unexplored wineries of San Patricio del Chañar outside of Neuquén.
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