Bike & Wine with Mr. Hugo

So Brad and I decided to do the famous bike and wine tour in Maipu (just outside of Mendoza) yesterday and it was fantastic. Basically, you take a bus outside of town to Maipu, rent a bike and ride around to the wineries all day. Can’t really beat that.

Things to Note:

1.  Go to Mr. Hugo’s Bikes, not Bike & Wine, etc. There’s a legendary couple, Mr. and Mrs. Hugo, that rent bikes to you all day for 30 pesos ($7) and then when you get back, supply you with unlimited free red wine. I have to share how great of a deal this is: we visited Bike&Wine in town, and although they were very friendly, they wanted to charge us $100 pesos or $150 pesos with lunch. Still doable but 3x the price…and minus the free wine..

In addition to their gregarious, hospitable attitudes and great prices, they also have a great atmosphere and lots of nice animals roaming around. Brad made a new friend…not exaggerating when I say this cat sat in his lap for half an hour and then came back and sat in his lap for another hour.

2. Note that the roads are VERY bumpy after Mitre street. It was pretty painful at moments. They are doing some construction on the main road between the first and second half of the wineries so if you’d like to avoid that, there are plenty of places to visit before that area.

3. This is a MUST do if you can ride a bike…and I’ve heard Maipu is better than Lujan but I’ll have to confirm that for myself.

4. Get some breakfast before you go. We rushed out there for no reason really (although the bus ride on line 10 took about 40 minutes) and there weren’t many places for coffee.

Our Stops:

1) Museo del Vino La Rural: free tour, great museum and explanations, free glass of wine

2) Gas station for coffee (I was dying w/o it)

3) Historias y Sabores: this isn’t really a tour, but more of a tasting of their chocolate, spreads and liqueurs. I wish we had done this after lunch, but I would definitely do this one again. 10 pesos/person for a tasting and we bought the green olive spread and the dulce de leche with hazelnuts spread all for about US $7.

4) Beer Garden: we loved this place. It was like Carrboro all over again with artesanal beer. Also, I must admit on a warm day after biking, I prefer a beer over red wine. I would also suggest eating here if you’re on a budget. Eating at the wineries can be expensive and the beer garden has delicious empanadas (carne) and pizza (only one type: mozzarella and tomato).

		Beer Garden VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

5) Tempus Alba: not really much of a tour—their self-guided tour involves walking outside, up the stairs and down again to read 4 posters on their wine-making, but it’s a classy place with a nice patio to drink a glass of wine. $12 pesos/glass of wine; There’s also a sampling of several of their wines for $30 pesos.

6) Back to Beer Garden for food

7) Mr. Hugo’s

I heard we made a big mistake in not going to A la Antigua to see their olive oil and chocolate. I also heard that Trapiche, one of the biggest wineries, doesn’t do that great of a job with the tour. But all in all, this was a GREAT experience, learned a lot and met a lot of cool people.