We booked an in-depth tour of four vineyards through the excellent and friendly Ampora Wine Tours in Mendoza. The tour was an all-day affair that visited four vineyards. It included a luncheon with wine pairings at one of them.

The first winery, and in some ways the most interesting, was at the historic Bodega Benegas. The history of this vineyard, as remembered through the haze of a day of drinking excellent Argentine wines, is that the owner is the scion of a family of venerable Argentinian winemakers. His grandfather (or great-grandfather?) was Tiburcio Benegas, the founder of Trapiche Vineyards, who introduced French vines into Argentina over a hundred years ago. The owner of the current Benegas practically grew up in the Trapiche winery, but by then the family had sold the winery, and the young man went off to make his fortune in some other field–investment banking?–in Buenos Aires. But wine was in his bloodstream, and Mendoza called. And his fortune must have been in pretty good condition, too, for he was able to buy and completely (and beautifully) renovate the run-down hundred-year-old winery and vineyards that now comprise Benegas Winery. He makes some nine different wines (named after his many children) in the beautifully renovated old buildings. And good wines they are!

The entryway to the winery sets a tone of intimate elegance, with small plantings of grapes, along with other greenery, flanking the path.

Inside, the first building contains exhibits of old winemaking equipment and some lovely traditional wall hangings.

Much of the wine is fermented for up to eighteen months in French oak barrels.

It is blended with other wine made in larger tanks; and then the finished wine stored in the bottle for a year, in the old concrete fermentation cellars, an area of the winery that vaguely reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe’s story “A Cask of Amontillado.”

Unaware of the dark, ancient cellars with their suggested mysteries, kittens played in the sunlit gardens above.

Next: Kaiken Winery