Times of Tenderness

Trekking through the countryside in Mendoza has been quite the adventure.  Getting to the correct areas for bikes, finding the wineries that we had planned on visiting, trying to balance our time at each spot, getting back to our hostel, figuring out what we want to eat and how to get there...  And luckily, we were able to hit some places.  The bike tour wasn't quite the ambitious 3-4 per day we had expected, but in the end, it was still a taste of Mendoza's finest.  It was also an experience that put ambitions into perspective, what I could achieve with my friend, and taking the moments in one by one.

A drop of red wine lingered in my glass as I held it up to the trellis above, vines creeping along the interlaced wooden frame.  The sun shone heavily down, and through the glass, I didn't know whether it was the sun's reflections or the clouds passing by as I passed it quickly above, savoring the last sip I took in.  The complexity of the wine's flavors lingered momentarily as a sourness and bitterness rose in my belly to my palate.  A shudder of guilt, pain, angst, and tenderness shot through as the drops rose into my eyes, knowing that I wanted to hug my special someone.

The dogs crept by, dragging along, waiting for me to share those precious bits of fat with them, but better sense told me not to just feed anything to them.  Their idling and whimpering ways resurrected the pangs I had felt moments before, and it was all I could do to not let them spill forth and ruin the idyllic surroundings.  My heart raced quickly as I drew deep breaths to calm down my feelings, because feelings are naturally inhibitive and bad to exhibit in public.  I waited patiently the rest of the day to tell my pillow my true emotions.

The following day of biking led us further south across from the gigantic industrial Bodega Norton.  Directly across was a shanty shack where we entered to rent our bikes for the day.  A tio waved us in, showed us the bikes, and proceeded to give us tips on where we wanted to go; the tinier boutique bodegas (winery, not the NY style ones) where there was better attention and tours were not regimented in clockwork patterns a la Ford.  We ordered a choripan and two empanadas for the road with him, knowing we wouldn't make the lunches at the bodegas.  As we sat enjoying our choripan, I stared at the television and no one other than Psy was beating out his rhymes to Gangnam Style.  I only hoped that the hyperbolic capitalist extremes came across as critique and not aspirational.

The day ended with only one bodega trip as we were turned around by high-speed roadways that were not permissive of bikers.  Bonfanti, off a dirt path behind a tree-lined street which we had to ride under another freeway to get to, was quiet, old, and redone as modern chic.  Olive trees were dispersed throughout the vineyard, a well-rounded approach to keeping the older Italian immigrants safe in case the vines failed.  We went through the mandatory tour before imbibing happily of this smaller scale bodega.  Apparently, as we've heard in more than one place, global wine capital has a heavy hand in the wine business, so we decided to support this smaller bodega with a purchase of 4 bottles each.  Small business is always tricky as nativism tends to come hand in hand, but one can only hope that the lures of capital do not curdle what we are supporting.  

We road back through the roads to the shanty shack to return our bikes to the tio of El Puesto Del Jamon, aching afterwards from our mules' work.  On the way back to Mendoza, we drifted in and out of sleep, and retired to our room to nap before dinner once again.  Monday will be our last trek out to wine country, and we've already arranged for the trip to hopefully go more smoothly.  As with many nights, I look forward to ending with my boo, talking about the day, and drifting off to sleep with the memories of tenderness mellowing my palate as I enter the dark space with the absence of dreams.