First port – Montevideo! We teamed up with some cruise critic pals (great group on this ship – lots of folks our age with common interests – we’ve had a great time meeting everyone at the meet and greets) who found a fabulous winery tour for us. Alan and Barb found the tour, and we signed up for it with Kim and Bob, and Melanie and Jeffery.
Everyone met at the appointed time and we huffed it off the ship. Had to walk out of the port to find the van, because they weren’t allowed inside, but it was an easy walk and they were right there waiting for us when we arrived. We all piled into the van, and CiCi our guide and sommelier with the vineyard introduced herself and gave us a guided tour of the city.
We drove through the commercial district of town, saw the principal government buildings, the shopping district, and the richer areas of the city out by the water. We even drove past the president’s house, which is just a normal house! One police car was sitting at the corner of the block and that was it. CiCi said that they have a couple of guards there, but nothing more than that because it’s just not the kind of place where they’d want to kill or bomb the president. Incredible!
We wound our way through the neighborhoods then finally out into the countryside to the Varela Zarranz vineyards. It took us about an hour or more to reach the beautiful little lane lined with Olive trees that led to the vineyards. The trees were planted over 100 years ago by the original founder of Varela Zarranz – and they have thrived in the climate and environment, as have the grape vines (but the vines are a tad bit younger than the olive trees).
The vineyard makes two different sets of wines: fine wine and mass distribution. The fine wines are marketed under Varela Zarranz, and the mass market wines under the name VUDU (which originally stood for Viticultores Unidos Del Uruguay – the original union of winemakers, that disbanded, but the winery got the rights to keep the name). They make hundreds of thousands of liters of mass market wine, and only a small amount of fine wine.
It’s a small, compact little winery operation with great steel vats for the mass wine, and old (1900’s era) oak barrels for the fine wine and champagne. We walked past rows of vines, were shown through the separating and fermenting process/machinery and into the bottling side of the operation. We had an excellent explanation of how they make/ferment/cork their champagne, then back to the cellar area for lunch and wine tasting.
The cellar was a gorgeous little basement area completely constructed of old field stone with wood beamed ceilings. There were seating areas at the front of the room, then a table set for eight with a fabulous array of antipasti set out and waiting for us. We dove into the salami and ham and olives, accompanied by great bread – rolls, pita and crunchy flat bread – and whet our whistle for the main event: the wine tasting.
We had 3 different bottles – The first, a white is their most popular, a blend called Petit Grain Muscat. I was worried it would be too sweet, but it wasn’t at all. Almost like a soft Sauvignon Blanc, it was incredibly good. The next 2 were red wines (only Kim and I liked whites, so we went with the group on the rest of the tastings!) – the first a Cabernet Franc – Tannat blend. Tannat is the main local grape in Uruguay – it is a very strong grape, but when blended with the other grapes, it smooths out the flavors. This wine was actually very good, and Ed and I both enjoyed it. The last wine was the full Tannat bottle – which was a little too strong for my taste – although Ed did enjoy it.
All this was accompanied by a traditional Uruguayan pie (almost like a dense quiche type pie) – one made of leek, one of chicken. It was delicious – with slices of chicken piled upon one another and a delicate crust. The perfect food to wash down with wine.
We all had a fantastic time – enjoying each others company and the food and wine. As we ate, the skies opened up and a huge storm blew in with thunder and lightening. But we couldn’t have cared since we were happy and dry and satisfying our taste buds with the delicious offerings from Varela Zarranz.
Sadly, it was too soon time to go. We each bought wine to take back with us (at $5 US a bottle – you can not beat it!), and we got an apron as well, then we all tippsily boarded our van in the pouring rain. After about 20 minutes of driving, CiCi got a call from the vineyard that someone had forgotten something. Oh no! It was our camera! We couldn’t believe we had done that! We were so embarrassed! So, the van duly turned around and made the trek back to pick it up. Thank heavens they noticed it, even if it did mean red faces for us!
In the end, all worked out well, because by the time we made it back to the ship, the rain had stopped. The 20 minute delay might have actually helped us! We all trundled back aboard, and headed to our cabins to drop our purchases before going up on deck to watch the sailaway. The skies had cleared, and the temperature was lovely as we sailed out of the Montevideo harbor and onto the open seas headed for Puerto Madryn, Argentina.
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