Bicycles and lots of wine. What a great combination. Close to Mendoza there’s a ton of wineries, and many of them are close enough together that if you rent a bicycle you can stagger from one to the next on two wheels.
You take a bus to the Maipu area from Mendoza and then there’s a few companies to rent bikes from. We rented from the one with the most advertising, Bikes and Wines, and man did my butt hurt the next day. We were told that Mendoza Bikes or something like that has more comfortable and cheaper bikes. We barely cared about cheaper since the price difference was very small, but I would have loved a more comfortable bike.
Only a few of the wineries on the route are free tastings, but most are pretty cheap if they’re not free. I think my favorite winery was the Tomasso family winery because they did lots of tastings and one of the better tours in a much smaller vineyard. We didn’t do many tours because often the guides would tell you that it would start in five minutes and then 15 minutes later you’d be wondering where the guide went. The bike rental companies say to estimate 30 minutes per stop, but we found that was highly unlikely. You might have to wait that long at some places for them to get in gear.
The ride at first is dusty and has lots of traffic, but as you get farther away from town the street becomes tree lined and pleasant with only the occasional car. We rode all the way down to the olive oil tasting at the end of the route. It was fun to see, but the olive oil here doesn’t compare at all to the stuff we practically drank daily in Spain. Another non-wine stop that’s really good is the chocolate and licour place. We probably would have bought a bottle of something there if we could have carried it the rest of the day.
Riding bikes to wineries is really a much nicer way to see them than a tour or public transportation. I hope Chile’s wineries get something like this going in the future.