Mendoza and wine tasting (part 3)

Our last stop on the tour was Florio winery, which was well known for its "vinos generosos", or wines with higher alcohol contents, and it's sweet wines. Also originally a family winery, the founders of blank came to Mendoza from Italy and brought many Italian wine traditions with them. We toured the facilities, similar to the last except that this winery has special refrigerators to store grape pulp to add to wines later to make them sweeter or more alcoholic (as the sugar turns to alcohol under the right conditions).

Next was the tasting. The first two wines we tried were the white and pink varieties of a wine I had never heard of: gamba di pernice. It means "partridge leg" in Italian, named for the appearance of the stalks, and was once a popular grape in Italy. Both wines we tried were sparkling, and both were delicious: bright and sweet, but not overwhelming. The white one especially made me feel like I was at an afternoon summer luncheon in the garden. Our next wine was a moscato, a sweet, 15.7% alcohol content wine. It was good, but not my favorite. Next was a Marsala, which was a mix of Malbec and Chardonnay grapes. It was strong, thick, sweet and had a slight coffee taste. It was not for me. 

We were a little tired after our wine tour, but after a brief rest we were ready to check out the city of Mendoza. It was really cute: several wide streets with spacious, smooth-cobblestone (as opposed to the uneven cobblestones of BA) paved sidewalks were lined with clothes stores, furniture shops, cafes, sweet shops, restaurants and artesian ice cream parlors. Many streets were also lined with tall trees in a manner that reminded me a little of Palo Alto. We walked to a long plaza and ended up having dinner at an Argentine-Italian restaurant. I had the Milanesa napolitana (thin meat breaded, pan fried and topped with tomato sauce, ham, and mozzarella. On the way home, we naturally stopped at one of the heladerías, and I had chocolate with almonds and tramontana (vanilla with dulce de leche and little chocolate cookies).