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Mendoza offers all the quality wines, scenic vistas and epicurean escapism as its sister wine-growing regions — Bordeaux and Napa — but good luck getting an up-close, intimate experience while in either of those two places. As Laura learns while exploring the region in this BT piece<\/a>, ” . . . it’s a more intimate experience here . . . [m]ost often, the guy who opens the door will be the vintner himself.”<\/p>\n She begins in Luj\u00e1n de Cuyo in western Mendoza, the birthplace of grape growing in Argentina and considered to be home of some of the world’s best Melbec<\/a>. Next, Laura (I feel like we’re friends already) heads into Valle de Uco to taste the valley’s specialty: Tempranillio (a grape with “elements of berryish fruit, herbaceousness, and an earthy-leathery minerality<\/a>” (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used this same description to describe the Tempranillio myself while at cocktail parties).<\/p>\n