If you are looking for a destination with a culinary heritage that combines tasty food and drink with history, pride and high quality wines; that has a complete offer of hotel infrastructure and complementary tourist services, where you can go all year round, with fluid and comfortable air and land connectivity, you should travel to the south of America and experience Mendoza, in Argentina, which hypnotises with its gastronomic tourism proposal, which fulfils what a food traveller values.
By Dalma Díaz Pinto.
Journalist. Ambassador World Food Travel Association.
Mendoza is one of the provinces of Argentina. It is located in the centre of this country, at the foot of the Andes Mountains, which separates it from Santiago de Chile, from where it can be reached by air in just 35 minutes arriving at an international airport that has about 200 weekly flights and international connections from all over the world. Known as the land of sun and good wine, it has hot summers and cold winters. It rains little, on average no more than 250 mm per year and has something very special for the tourist. It brings together in one place the life of the cosmopolitan cities, in clean and tidy streets where you can breathe the tranquillity that the big capitals have already lost.
There is nightlife, and a nature of countryside, snow, rivers and mountains, where wine is the protagonist of an offer of integrated experiences. It is the birthplace of Malbec, which, due to the characteristics of the climate, the soil and the techniques that its producers apply with their winemaking expertise, make this variety, originally from France, behave in a different way, resulting in a quality wine that is highly valued worldwide, in addition to other varietals that are very well made for wine tourists and lovers of good wine.
Recently, Mendoza celebrated being part of the map of those who travel long distances if necessary, to live the sense of a destination, through its food and drink. The Michelin Guide arrived in Argentina this year, and of the 10 stars awarded to this country, seven were in Mendoza. Four in the restaurant category and three in sustainable restaurants.
The following is an anthology of gastronomic tourism proposals from Mendoza, which represent the excellence of this destination, which orients its proposal towards a high gastronomy that is complemented with the well-earned positioning of its wine tradition, the influence of the settlers, the respect for the ancestral cosmovision and the technological innovation, whose meaning you can live during the 365 days of the year.
The Italian-Mendoccan cuisine of Francesco Ristorante.
Francesco is the name of this space, where the culinary legacy of the Italian settlers and their arrival in Mendoza is palpable in a menu that fuses the Italian family cuisine that its founder, Nonna Fernanda and her husband Francesco, established as pioneers of local gastronomy in 1954, and that their daughter María Teresa took over incorporating the flavours of Mendoza.
The restaurant is located in the centre of Mendoza city in the family house, which was refurbished considering design and functionality in every space. It is located next to Gio Bar and Il Mercantino, the other two gastronomic establishments of the Barbera family, so they have created a gastronomic complex to go all year round.
The cellar of Francesco Ristorante is very complete. It is underground, with more than 450 labels and treasured wines stored for years.
Following in the footsteps of Malbec. Olivícola Laur.
Olive oil is one of Mendoza's star products. The destination obtained the first geographical identification for an olive oil in America and counts this olive oil producer among its integrated gastronomic tourism experiences, as a benchmark for the quality of this product, which has become a must on the route of travellers who value haute cuisine in the world.
Olivícola Laur was founded in 1889 by French immigrant Francisco Laur, a visionary in the food industry who planted olive groves in Mendoza. The company has processes that safeguard the recipes of yesteryear, with technological innovation that guarantees traceability and varieties of oil, which can be discovered, tasted and purchased on tours guided by the company's staff.
The olive mill was named by the Evoo World Ranking as the No. 1 olive mill in the world in 2021 and 2022, which placed the brand with its gastronomic tourism experience in the Top 11 of the best olive mills in the world. They have a base of five types of olive oil, five varieties of canned olives, canned complementary products, and wines of the organic varietals Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Biodynamics as a principle. Alpamanta Winery.
Alpamanta is a boutique winery, whose name means in the local indigenous language, "love for the land", a concept that implies working in harmony with nature. The wines are made with biodynamic agriculture that respects the soil and its biodiversity, in a vineyard that is 950 metres above sea level, in a Mendoza where there is sunshine an average of 330 days of the year, little rain (220 mm per year) but enough to have an exquisite soil in its combination of superficial limestone, sand, silt and clay.
They use certified organic - biodynamic grapes from the same vineyard, which identifies the terroir, and with the technology they have incorporated, the manipulation of the winemaking process is reduced to a minimum. They also use the lightest bottles on the market and the packaging is recycled. The result: malbec, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, petit verdot, syrah, chardonnay; sustainable and high quality.
It is possible to visit the winery and take guided tours. The energy that you feel in the biodynamic architecture of the place, including the story of the service and sales team, and tastings, makes the experience a moment of tasty wellbeing.
Huentala Wines in Uco Valley.
The Uco Valley is one of the most important wine epicentres in Mendoza. It is home to Huentala Wines, a complex set in a mesmerizing landscape next to the Tupungato Volcano, in the town of Gualtallary with 230 hectares of vineyards irrigated with pristine water from the melting snows of the Andes Mountains, founded by a family with a winemaking tradition, led by businessman Julio Camsen. The estate has been built with the visitor's reception in mind, so that he/she can live an integral experience, related to wine as the seductive protagonist. There is a hall for corporate and social events, where it is possible to learn about oenology with tastings given by the staff's technical team; a lodge with two luxury rooms and a restaurant that can be visited during the whole week with previous reservation.
Huentala Wines produces Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay and Malbec varietals, which can become the perfect pairing for a menu based on fire cooking, and the Rastro Menu, which proposes a journey through the history of Mendoza, connected with the world, through its food and drink, with a well achieved incorporation of plastic arts in its assembly and use of colour, local raw materials and flavours. From the first settlers who arrived along the Pacific coast, the European and Central American migration, and the border integration that presents a united South America and a cosmopolitan Mendoza that is proud of the fusion that makes it what it is.
The Huentala group has built an integrated experience where tourism and gastronomy move at a level of excellence. In addition to the Huentala Wines complex, it also owns Huentala Hotel, recognised for incorporating art as one of its hallmarks in each space of the infrastructure in the centre of the capital, Sheraton Mendoza Hotel and Hualta Hotel Curio Collection by Hilton, the first urban winery hotel in Latin America, located at kilometre zero of the city of Mendoza.
On 4 April, Huentala Wines marked a historic milestone for the world of wine. It started to produce wine in the Huala Hotel itself. It is the first time this has been done in the centre of Mendoza since the city was created, which puts the city once again in the focus of interest of international gastronomic tourism travellers.
The stars that enhance the El Enemigo experience with Casa Vigil.
Casa Vigil Restaurant is part of Universo Vigil, the concept created by winemaker Alejandro Vigil, named as one of the most influential people in the world of wine by Decanter Magazine, also called "the Messi of Wine", for being the first to achieve 100 Robert Parker points for the Argentine wines Gran Enemigo single Vineyard Gualtallary 2013 and Adriana Vineyard River Stone 2016.
His winery and his wines, El Enemigo, bear this name based on his philosophy of the internal struggle that human beings have, which is represented in the logo of his brand, where there is a man facing a dragon, which represents human fears.
Located in the sector of Cachingo, in the area where the Aleanna Winery is also located, where the wines El Enemigo and Gran Enemigo of the same Universo Vigil are produced, the restaurant is located in a large house of rustic architecture, inspired by the story of Dante in the Divine Comedy, with three rooms and the revolutionary concept of making a journey from hell to purgatory, through a sensory experience that culminates in a banquet in paradise with the people who are special to you, and where wine is an important protagonist.
The Michelin Guide 2024 awarded it a star for its high-level cuisine, and a green star for gastronomy and sustainability. The cuisine is based on seasonal produce from the family garden, with family recipes and the Vigil Universe wine list. There is the world of tastings, where one chooses how to pair the food, from three to 11 courses.
Estate cuisine that tells a story. Durigutti Family Winemarkers.
Héctor and Pablo Durigutti grew up in the world of winemarkers and decided to follow that path. In 2002 they made their first wine together and today, they are a reference of the new generation of winemakers in Argentina. In 2007, they bought the first hectares in the Las Compuertas sector in Luján de Cuyo and in 2008 they started to produce their wines. They did very well. In 2010 their Malbec was recognised in Wine Spector's Top 100 and today, they have their Finca Victoria, where there is a boutique winery that opens its doors to tourists, with two guest houses that they themselves call a perfect space for those who want to wake up seeing the vineyards.
In 2022 they opened their restaurant “5 Suelos Cocina de Finca”, which at the beginning of 2024 was recommended by the Michelin Guide.
The restaurant is called 5 Suelos, after the different types of soil on the estate. It is in the middle of the vineyards and is led by chef and Country Brand Ambassador Patricia Courtois, with a cuisine that prioritises the use of seasonal produce grown organically on the estate itself and from small producers that make up its supply chain. There are four menus, including the 5-step menu, called 5 Suelos, and the 14-step Historia, which allows you to take with you the influence of each period of Argentina's history in gastronomy and winemaking, with a carefully selected wine pairing.
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