Dirty clothes and forbidden activities

"The dirty laundry," became the whispered subject of ridicule among the local businessmen and their wives in the late 1800's.

The Dirty Laundry Vineyards is a short drive from the original laundry business which was located near the steamship wharf in Summerland, but the back-story is so intriguing that no one cares that wine and wine touring was not a 'thing' a hundred or more years ago.

Brought with thousands of his countrymen from China to Canada to do the back-breaking labour of laying the CPR railroad tracks, one man soon realized the work was akin to forced labour. He left to start his own business - a laundry service for the multitude of single men working in the area.

Some would agree he catered to a niche market.

The upstairs waiting room at the laundry in Summerland BC, was a place where the working men could get their clothes cleaned and enjoy an illicit drink, play a game of cards, or spend time in the company of a woman. 

The consumption of alcohol was frowned upon by the upstanding citizens of the day and had to be purchased from the Hudson's Bay Company in Vernon then shipped 60 miles south to Summerland on the lake steamers. The trade supplied the local men, plus the furtraders, cattlemen, goldminers, and railway labourers. The Sunday-school children of the time were taught to recite this odd little ditty;

"We don't like tobacco, and surely we think that all that use it are more apt to drink." 

My friend Sharon Hickey and I popped up to the Dirty Laundry Vineyards on a warm Friday afternoon for pizza and wine on their outdoor patio. With the COVID19 protocols enforcing social-distancing between tables, the restaurant was busy and had a waitlist of guests. But, we didn't have to wait too long, just enough time to check out the fun merchandise in the company store. 

The restaurant concept is self-serve with one kiosk to order freshly made pizza, another for beer, and a third of course for ordering their own wines to enjoy with your food. The view from the patio overlooks the vineyards, the remnants of the Kettle Valley Railway, and Okanagan Lake. The food was great, the atmosphere relaxing, and the wine good. 

The only downside was my semi-famous pooch, Sparky, had to stay home and sulk in the cool comfort of our air-conditioned apartment. 

The YouTube video posted on the The Dirty Laundry Vineyards' webpage has a fun mention of the morals of the late 1800's. 

Have a look!  https://www.dirtylaundry.ca/our-story

An afternoon at the Dirty Laundry is a pleasant way to spend a few hours chatting and sipping wine. We didn't see any women of ill-repute, but we did notice a suspicious amount of lacy lingerie hung out to dry.

Cheers

Lynda & The Sparkinator

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Eating and drinking our way across dog-friendly Argentina

Park pooch at San Rafael Argentina

We spent a week exploring in Argentina, sightseeing and eating our way across the province of Mendoza. There are amazing wineries, fabulous restaurants, and dogs of every size, shape, colour and variety.

Using the Petit Suter Hotel in San Rafael, as our base we investigated the surrounding area. Situated in the semi-arid southern region of Mendoza province, San Rafael has a population of around 170,000 inhabitants. It’s a vibrant community with lots of amenities including several gourmet restaurants. A wide and delicious selection of only Argentinian wine is sold in every corner store. No imports allowed.

Wine, wine and more wine!

While exploring the various communities we saw a well-balanced interaction between the residents and the street dogs. Strays usually stake out their territory by napping in doorways of restaurants, stores and gas stations. 

Many locals stop to give the dogs a bit of food and a pat on the head. The snowy winter months would be harder for the animals but right now the strays are in good condition, with no sign of scrawny moms scavenging for food so that they can feed their babies. This is one of the most dog-friendly countries we have ever experienced.

Gas station dog gets a handout

As mentioned in our previous articles the roads in Argentina are well-maintained, but directional signage is very scarce. It makes for interesting daytrips. 

We’d head out with a destination in mind, only to find ourselves in a completely different hamlet. 

As long as there was flavourful food and tasty drinks at the end of the adventure we were happy.

Plate-sized hamburger

In one instance we headed south-west from San Rafael towards El Nihuil via highway #173 and instead arrived in the town of General Alvear on highway #143 a good bit east of our original destination. That gave us a good laugh while we searched for a local restaurant that was open for lunch on a Saturday. 

Again we stopped at the corner gas station, asking for suggestions. Just a block away was a local eatery serving dinner-plate sized hamburgers and litre bottles of Andes beer. 

The food was tasty and the owners friendly. The street dogs politely waited for handouts.

Another afternoon, Carlos, the owner of the Petit Suter Hotel suggested that we drive twenty kilometers west to the next village Veintecinco de Mayo (25th of May) and have lunch at his favourite restaurant, the Villa Bonita. The route was fairly straightforward enabling us to find the eatery without traversing the Andes in search of the village. 

We enjoyed a hearty meal of meat, stewed and covered with a pastry crust. 

Hi!  Want to share with me?

My body was craving dark green veggies – broccoli, spinach, and asparagus. Lawrie, on the other hand, was as happy as a pig-in-poop with the menu choices of meat, meat and more meat.

I bundled up the left-over beef and carried it back to the gas station dog near our hotel. He was a very happy mutt that day. 

A few days later we were headed back north to Mendoza City, the past week having passed in a blur of food and wine. 

On our way north we veered into the Salentein winery for one last chance at purchasing our favourites. On the off-chance we asked if we could have lunch in the restaurant. We hadn’t thought to make the normally required reservation. 

Salentein Winery lunch.

Fortunately for us the young woman who manages the bar-restaurant remembered us from the previous week. She said she could squeeze us in – yippee!  

Another amazing lunch served with delicious wines and an outstanding view of the snow-capped Andes Mountains.

It was a darn great way to end our adventures.

Hasta Luego from Paradise

Cheers Lynda & Lawrie

~

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Quirky stuff we learned in wine country, Argentina

Wine Country Argentina

Our recent Argentinian wine-touring adventure started with a bus trip from Buenos Aires to Mendoza City.  

The cost of traveling by bus is considerably cheaper than the two-hour flight and we thought it would be an interesting budget-stretching alternative, plus it would be a great way to see a piece of this enormous country.

Great marketing for CATA

The CATA International bus lines reeled us in with promises of a relaxing and enjoyable ride with reclining bed-like seats, blankets, pillows, breakfast, mid-day snacks, lunch with a glass of wine, and late night snacks. 

The price was half of what it would cost to fly two hours to Mendoza City.

The trip was scheduled to take around fourteen hours on a major freeway, with two drivers alternating every few hours to give them time to rest and recuperate. 

In reality it was a hellacious eighteen-hour journey visiting every small hamlet along the route to load and unload passengers and freight, while our ever-increasing sore butts were stuck in airplane-style seats. Next time we’ll read the Trip Advisor reviews before booking.

CATA - two cookies for meals

The promised on-board amenities such as blankets, pillows and a glass of wine? Nope, nada, nothing.  

The twelve people who had paid for the premium seats (that was us) were served 3 ounces of instant coffee with two cookies at nine in the morning, and another 3 ounces of instant coffee plus two cookies at nine at night. 

Around four in the afternoon the bus stopped long enough for just our small group of premium passengers to hop off and purchase beer and pre-made sandwiches from a local taco stand. 

CATA break glass for emergency escape

At least the on-board toilet worked, although the drivers’ ideas of cleaning the communal toilet was a bit humorous. 

It consisted of sprinkling a Dutch-Cleanser-style cleaning powder on the toilet seat, preventing anyone from actually sitting down. 

We cancelled the remaining portion of the tickets and booked our return airfare as soon as we had internet access in Mendoza. 

So, not a great start to our envisioned luxury ride across the landscape of Argentina, but it got better, a lot better, once we were settled into the Sheraton Hotel in Mendoza City. 

Our Alamo rental car pickup was directly across the street from the hotel.  Easy peasy.  Sign the papers and stash the car in the hotel parkade, and set out on foot to explore the vibrant city of Mendoza. Abundant parks. Numerous lunchtime restaurants. Shops that observe the afternoon closing hours of two until five or six, re-opening again until nine in the evening. Gourmet restaurants that open at nine at night to begin serving the evening meal. Normal bedtime in Argentina is well after midnight.

Vibrant Mendoza City, in Mendoza Valley 

The following day we checked with the experts at the hotel. Where should we start our wine tour? Where’s a good place to stop for a yummy lunch to celebrate my birthday?

The cute young guy tilted his head and smiled at me, “Where are you from?” He asked.

I replied, “We live in Mexico, but before that we lived in the Okanagan Valley in Canada. There are over 350 wineries in the Okanagan, and almost all of them feature award-winning restaurants.”

Gutters to collect rainwater for city trees

Still smiling he said, “In this valley there are over 1500 wineries.” He paused dramatically to make sure we were paying attention before he continued, “of which about 200 will allow visitors, and only 30 have restaurants. Reservations are also mandatory for the restaurants.”

I am pretty sure our mouths dropped open at that point. 1500 wineries and only 30 restaurants! Holy cow! Not what we expected at all.

We had envisioned driving from winery to winery along twisty country roads, popping in here and there to sample the vintages. We’d perhaps purchase a bottle to enjoy later, and maybe one or two to take back to Mexico with us. Have a leisurely lunch, tour some more, and finally reach our next hotel around cocktail time.

Alrighty then, let’s re-group and get a plan. 

Award-winning O. Fournier Winery building

The tour guide booked us into his favourite the O. Fournier Winery, located in San Carlos about a hundred and thirty kilometers south of Mendoza, for a one o’clock reservation. 

That gave us time to explore the valley a bit before our lunch. So off we go armed with a not-quite-to-scale map of the wine region. You know that little sticker on your car mirrors that says – objects may be closer than they appear.  The map was the reverse. Wineries are farther than they appeared on the map. The side-streets and intersections are seldom marked. Clear and abundant signage for the wineries seems to be considered vulgar, tacky. 

Wine bodegas clustered in a village setting

Our favourite Argentinian Malbec wine from the Salentein Winery near Tunuyan, in the Uco Valley, had exactly one sign about a kilometer from the entrance.

In the meantime we wandered here and there through little hamlets looking for the wineries indicated on the map. I am slowly coming around to the idea of a handheld GPS for future excursions. Lawrie’s form of navigating involves tossing the map on the back seat and pointing ‘that a way,’ so I usually take the navigators seat, reading glasses perched on my nose and map in hand.

Inside Salentein Winery distances to other countries

In our helter-skelter route we came across an area of wine bodegas, small stores set up in a village atmosphere. Each bodega represented one or more wineries, offering the public an opportunity to purchase merchandise from the numerous producers that don’t want visitors. 

At this point we were still searching for the illusive Salentein Winery. With a little help from a pleasant young woman managing one of the wine bodegas we eventually found the correct road, albeit from the long way around. 

Salentein is a massive operation, romantically located in the vineyard with a gorgeous backdrop of the snow-capped Andes. We asked at the wine shop if we could taste some of the wines before purchasing.

Lawrie - Salentein Winery entrance

“Certainly. Just go to the restaurant, purchase a glass of what you would like to taste. Then return to the wine shop and buy what you are interested in.”

Alrighty then, that’s another quirky difference between Canadian and Argentinian wineries. Sampling different varietals and vintages is allowed in Canada for a small cover fee, typically applied against your purchase price. 

The very pleasant young woman named Rocia, (English translation is Dew) poured us a delicious Sauvignon Blanc to share.  Then we returned to the wine shop to purchase our favourites.

Amazing lunch at O. Fournier Winery 

About now it was time to head further south to our luncheon reservation.  With a little more experience of driving the Argentinian countryside we managed to find the main highway to San Carlos, buzzing right past the one-and-only sign for O. Fourier Winery.

Stopping at the next gas station we used hand signs and Spanglish to ask for directions, eventually finding our way into the beautiful structure five minutes early. Yeah team!  

Other customers not interested in the view!

Bypassing the offer of a pre-lunch winery tour we were escorted to our reserved table. 

The forty-seat restaurant has an outstanding view of the impressive Andes Mountains, apparently not so entrancing to another couple who spent the entire time accessing messages on their phones.

Lunch at O. Fournier Winery

And our lunch at the O. Fourier Winery, wow!  It was probably the best meal we have ever experienced, six courses of intriguing flavours, beautifully presented and accompanied by different wines. It was an outstanding way to celebrate my birthday with my sweetie.

This blog article is becoming a bit unwieldly in length so we’ll finish recounting our Argentinian Adventure next week.

In the meantime,

Hasta Luego from Paradise

Cheers Lynda & Lawrie

~

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