Amanda Barnes

Category: Travel tales

Tales from the road

  • Dispatch from the Frontline

    Written for Wine-Searcher.com

    Lucas tears at the vine stalk; dry leaves crunch, stems crackle and grapes bleed under the force of his hands, but the stalk won’t snap off. The extra effort makes his tired arms shake, his bent legs cramp and another trickle of sweat roll down from his sun cap to the spine of his neck. It’s 36°C (96.8°F). He pulls his scissors out of his side pocket and cuts the bunch of black berries, cupping it in his hand and dropping it into the bucket below piled with grapes. He grabs another bunch. Cut. Drop. Cut. Drop. Cut. Drop.

    He sees Juan next to him ripping off bunches two at a time with his hands. It’s twice as quick, but Lucas got told off by the vineyard manager yesterday for not using his scissors, and as the harvest comes to an end and work opportunities dry up he doesn’t want to risk losing a day’s work. He needs to take money home.

    It has been a tough three months of harvest and by now Lucas’s back is agony, not helped by the hard floor he sleeps on each night. Last night he was hoping he’d get more sleep but Mario woke him and the others up as he stumbled into the house steaming drunk at 3 a.m., waking everyone except the one he intended to arouse – his half-deaf, snoring wife, Maria-Lucia.

    “House” is an overstatement for the place where Lucas lives. It is a squalid, mud-brick shack in rural Ugarteche. When he arrived in Mendoza from his home town in Bolivia three months ago, he had a contact his brother had given him for somewhere cheap to live during the harvest. At first, it was just him and six others in the three-bedroomed “house,” but now more than 15 bodies are crammed in and sometimes the men bring back girls. Sweaty, musty, fatigued bodies lie on overlapping mattresses and blankets, with creaking hammocks above.

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  • The Wine Routes of Uruguay

    Uruguay is the little country between Argentina and Brazil on the coast. It’s not Paraguay, and they are separate countries. Sounds patronizing, but its surprising how many Uruguayans will tell you anecdotes of how most westerners they meet actually have no idea where this little gem of a country is.  And if you look at any bottle of Uruguayan wine, they almost all put a map of South America on the bottle, highlighting where their country is.

    If you are travelling in the Southern Cone, don’t miss it out. Yes – it’s organized, it’s clean, people go to bed at a reasonable hour and public transport runs on time, but that doesn’t make it boring. With Christmas and New Year’s celebrations taking the form of huge cider throwing fights, endless fireworks and lots of parties, the year gets off to a good start here, but the best time to visit the capital city of Montevideo has to be Carnival in February and March. The longest Carnival in the world, with 40 days of theatre, music, murgas and candombe – it even gives Rio de Janeiro a run for its money.

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  • Riding with Gauchos

    I’ve been here two years and had some awesome experiences, but I think last weekend was one of my best weekends in Mendoza. Two days of horse riding in the Andes, sleeping under the stars and learning the tricks of the trade with a hoard of rowdy gauchos…

    Very near The Vines’ own vineyard in the Uco Valley lies the Manzano Historico – a mountain crossing to Chile made famous because it was here where General San Martin rallied up his troops to liberate Argentina. Tunuyan’s council recently decided to increase the area of the nature reserve and to celebrate they invited a few hardy journalists out to explore the area on the back of a horse with a few people from the council and around 30 gauchos to lead the pack.

    I have to admit from the beginning that I am terrible on horseback- a complete novice- so two days horse trekking, tripping over large rocks and jumping across rivers was quite a baptism by fire (and my butt has been reminding me ever since). But the rump ache is totally worth every last twitch as the experience of riding through the Andes is once in a lifetime.

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  • Malbec vs Cot

    malbec_vs_ct_smallMalbec made Argentine wine famous, but its true French roots are lesser known on this side of the Atlantic. Amanda Barnes goes in search of the original Malbec – in Cahors, France before indulging in a luxury tour of its adopted home here in Mendoza. **Article taken from Wine Republic

    The French Connection

    Coming from Argentina, the first thing that really strikes you about Cahors is how green it is. Emerald green fields run into sloping lime green lawns with brooding pine green forests above –this is a very lush landscape. And typically on the day we arrive, it’s raining.

    Nestled in the middle of Southern France, almost equidistant between France’s two coast lines, the Lot region has a privileged position in the heart of food and wine country between Bordeaux and Provence. So it is no surprise that the local gastronomy is one of the main attractions for visitors of Cahors, as well as the stunning medieval architecture, multitudes of resplendent and crumbling chateaus and a host of outdoor activities.

    Arriving at the peak of summer, the city centre is a hub of activity (when the sun eventually does come out) with people wandering the walled medieval town, meandering alongside the river, gawking at France’s best preserved medieval bridge, and indulging in the local cuisine. This is the land of foie gras, duck, truffles and saffron; it would be easy to just spend a week here eating but as much as my stomach would like otherwise – I came to Cahors not just to glut but to get out and see where Malbec came from.

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