Mendoza. If their tourist office offered me a job I’d jump at it, seeing as I quite happily sing the city’s praises for free. Me and Mendoza clicked, the way some places just do; it felt right, very much my kind of town. 350 days of sunshine a year for a start; throw in fantastic food and wine – this is Argentina’s vineyard after all – wide, leafy avenues, gorgeous women, an unhurried pace of life, the Andes right on your doorstep and you have la ciudad perfecta. My planned four days quickly – perhaps slowly would be more apt – became seven.

A definite bonus was the fact that a friend of mine lived here; Nacho and I spent a fortnight working together on a Riojan winery, happily mocking each other’s respective homelands, and picked up where we’d left off this time round. Also in town was Dani, a Mexican girl I’d had a bizarre friendship-cum-relationship with out in Rioja and who was now working, randomly, for an architects firm in Mendoza. On my first night in town I met her for a drink, wondering if this time it would be any less awkward between us. No was the answer; despite having not seen each other for over a year conversation had all but dried up within about ten minutes. I went for a beso as we said goodbye and instead got offered the cheek. Plus ça change…

Dani hadn’t changed. Circumstances, however, had. I was in a city of stunning mendocinas and not in a small Spanish town bereft of options, a point amply demonstrated on meeting Nacho for his girlfriend Nati’s birthday drinks. Tatiana, Nati’s sister, was gorgeous, as was Nati’s friend Euge. Game on! Everyone eventually drifted home, save Nacho and Nati, Euge and I. I suggested we go on to another bar; old-timer Nacho was flagging and needed some sleep, so Euge and I headed on. She was 31, curvy and feisty: a fun night.

The days drifted lazily by. I saw the sights; a museum on the site of the former cabildo, or town hall, explained the city’s colonial past and the devastating consequences of a mid 19th century earthquake that slammed the city, killing half Mendoza’s inhabitants and giving rise to the modern city that grew out of the rubble. I also took myself round the Aquarium and Serpentarium, feeling like a 10 year old as I gawped at huge pythons – in distinctly unhuge tanks – venomous vipers and George the lonesome turtle. All good, until hordes of screaming over excited schoolchildren engulfed me, leading to a hasty retreat. Another afternoon I rented a bike and set off for the city’s main park, Parque General San Martin, a vast swathe of greenness intersected, somewhat to my surprise, by busy highways. The Oxford Uni Parks this wasn’t – not even any bikes allowed in there, let alone 18 wheeler supercamiones.

I struggled, sweated and cursed my way in the direction of Cerro la Gloria, a monument-topped hill with views out over the city and across to the Andes, stopping 4 or 5 times en route to check the bike. Why was cycling proving to be such an effort? The lack of gears on the bike wasn’t helping, admittedly, but I hadn’t had that much to drink the night before had I?

After clambering to the top and admiring the sunsoaked panoramas, I descended to the foot of the hill once more, regained the saddle and, after five or ten seconds pedalling, let gravity do the rest – the whole park sloped gently upwards, in the direction of the Andes. This would explain the difficulty of my expletive-laden efforts of earlier; I should perhaps have grasped this concept of mountains having to climb in height a little beforehand. Anyway, the next five minutes were sheer unadulterated joy, freewheeling a kilometre all the way across the park to a massive boating lake near the gates. The sun was shining down and Mendoza was helping me relive forgotten childhood joys: aquariums, biking on hot sunny days, and sultry latinas; a staple ingredient of any good Oxford upbringing 🙂

It was the wines that had brought me to Mendoza though, so on day 4 in Paradise I headed out with Belinda, an Aussie girl from the hostel, and after a few bus-related mishaps made it to Lujan, one of the main Mendozan winegrowing regions and just 15km south of the city itself. We hopped on bikes and set off in search of some bodegas. Some people might disagree, but for me life was meant for days like this – the sun blazing gloriously down, the perfumed scent of early summer in the air, and us off to go hunt down the perfect vintage.

First up, after a delightfully tranquil meander along tree-shaded highways and byways, was Bodegas Bonfanti, a small family run outfit where our guide was in fact the owner’s wife. It was obvious the wine, from vine to glass, received plenty of cariño – the end results were delicious. Mendoza has the perfect viticultural climate, as if blessed by Bacchus himself: hot sunny days, cool-ish nights, poor dry soil and little rainfall. The world-renowned Malbec varietal seems particularly suited to this Promised Land.

Post lunch we biked our way, after a couple of punctures, to the gates of Bodegas Norton, an international winery in stark contrast to small-scale Bonfanti. Here production, weighing in at a whopping 15 million litres of wine a year, was fully mechanized and wholly depersonalized – I like my wineries small and perfectly formed. Norton, however, was undeniably impressive; driven to the start of the tour in a stretch golf buggy, with champagne on arrival. Also interesting was the chance to taste the same grape (Malbec), same vintage (2008) at three different stages of the process – from the vat, straight from the barrel and finally from a cellar plucked bottle, the evolution of the wine clearly evident.

Bodegas 3 and 4 were small timers much like Bonfanti; the first a 4th generation family owned operation where the speciality, bizarrely, was communion wine. Not so nice. Number 4, however, was fantastic,  the perfect way to end the day. After being given a brief tour by the amiable owner he sat us down at a tree-shaded table next to a small plot of vines, brought us Chardonnay and Cabernet to quaff and amicably waxed lyrical on all things winey – hail, late frosts, pruning and the extreme love and care that each little grapelet needs. A good day.

Next afternoon Nacho and Nati gave me a tour of the countryside surrounding the city. We drove through Maipu, another of Mendoza’s wine growing regions, past Lujan and on into the lower reaches of the Andes before arriving at Potrerillos, where one dammed reservoir provides all of the city’s water. Mendoza is in the Andean rain shadow –  outside the city is all desert – and survives solely on snowmelt channeled down form the mountains. This year very little snow had fallen, and the reservoir level had dropped by a whopping 10 metres. I get the feeling Mendoza is unfortunately going to suffer this summer.

Back in town I met up with Euge and headed out to meet a couple of her friends at a restaurant in the city’s buzzing nightowl district. I’d already eaten – it was already well past midnight – yet the girls thought nothing of ordering. Neither, it seemed, did the rest of the city: where English streets would at this time of night be lined with drunken, possibly vomiting revellers, here it was the restaurants that were doing a far better trade than the bars. On we headed after food, the sun well up by the time we’d staggered home.

My last couple of days in time – rather like all of them now I come to think of it – were lazy ones. Sunday didn’t get started until 4pm, while Monday was all about soaking up summer rays on the hostel roof and asking myself exactly why I was leaving Mendoza; the place had worked its unassuming laid back magic on me. Buenos Aires was going to have to blow my socks off in order to compete with Mendoza for my affections.