Wine and Women

The city of Mendoza, on Argentina's western border, nestling next to the Andes, is the country´s main producer of wine. Each year on the first Saturday of March they hold a big festival to celebrate the start of the vendimia (harvest) and enjoy some of their finest produce. Funnily enough, I happened to arrive in Mendoza on the first Thursday in March, just in time to find a place to stay before the festivities began.

It´s a very pretty city, with broad streets lined with trees and inhabitants who seem to take greater pride in their surroundings than in Buenos Aires. On every street is someone washing their car, sweeping the pavement or tidying their garden and the streets are relatively free from the litter that Porteños just drop as they go.

Last night was the Vendimia Acto Central, a huge show in the town´s outdoor theatre to celebrate the start of the festival and select this year´s Reina de la Vendimia (Harvest Queen). I couldn´t miss out so, along with at least 50 thousand patritotic Argentines waving flags, I perched on a stone seat with a glass of Malbec to enjoy the show.

Hundreds of dancers dressed as grapes, wines, water, sun and earth depicted the story of wine production, including, I am sure, a fair amount of local myth and legend that I didn´t recognise. I have to say it was a bit of a "cena del perro" (look it up) with many of the dancers seemingly doing their own thing and bumping into each other on stage, but it was very enjoyable and the rest of the audience absolutely loved it, including those who hadn´t been able to get tickets and had thronged the surrounding hills to peer down at the stadium from above. I regret to say that after two hours sitting on a stone I didn´t stay until the very end to see who was elected Harvest Queen, as I realised that I was bored and didn´t care.

Tonight I might just find a lovely restaurant and enjoy a bottle or two of Mendoza´s finest. Adios. x