Day 288: Antarctic Cruise Day 24 – Montevideo
Our final day of our glorious, 24-day cruise around South America and Antarctica is finally at an end with our last port of call: Montevideo, Uruguay. Uruguay is a small country, wedged in between Argentina and Brazil (originally founded in the late 1700’s to be a “buffer state” between the Spanish and Portuguese colonies to prevent land disputes between the two monarchies). While it may not be a big country, Uruguay has some interesting characteristics: second South American country to legalize gay marriage, the ONLY South American country to legalize pot, and one of the most economically stable countries (the only country that didn’t suffer from the 2008 Great Recession).
We had an excursion to some of the wineries outside of town booked for the afternoon, so we got off the ship early in the morning so we could walk around the capital and explore the city streets, plazas, and public beaches before meeting up with our tour bus.
Early morning walk through central Montevideo – the colonial-era European buildings contrast with the modern Latino streetart
Vegetable stands selling lots of greens…
…while coffee shops sell a different type of “green” (FYI – marijuana is legal in Uruguay)
Walking through the Old Port Marketplace, where the parillas are just getting fired up for the lunchtime rush
Independence Plaza – where a statue and mausoleum of José Artigas sits in front of the first “skyscraper” in South America (all of 22-stories high!)
Walking along the water to revisit Ramírez Beach, which we drove past the day before. The surf is too shallow for a decent swim, so Lindsay just dips her feet in the cold water
There is a skate park near the beach where several figure skaters are rehearsing their routines
It should come as little surprise that, like Chile and Argentina, Uruguay produces wine. It should come as a littler surprise that Lindsay wanted to go wine tasting while she was in Uruguay. Igor insisted we had great booze on the boat (for free!) so he was confused why Lindsay was dragging him on wine excursions but indulged her anyway. While the wine country is a mere 30min outside of town and would have been an easy daytrip to do on our own, neither of us wanted to be the designated driver, so we booked an excursion with the ship. “A Study in Contrasts,” was the theme of the 4½hr tour that took us to two very different wineries.
The first winery was a very small, family owned and operated bodega called Beretta Vineyards. Founded just over 100 years ago in 1913 by the great grandfather of the current CEO & winemaker. Their production is incredibly small – well under 100,000 cases. The wines were on the rustic side (nothing really to our taste), but the hacienda was pretty (although non-air conditioned), and the winemaker was extremely attentive, playing both guide and hostess as she poured our wines and served us cold cuts and cheese. In fact, we got the sense that she doesn’t get many visitors at the winery – she seemed to talk forever, going on and on about how to taste wine properly (in Spanish, which our tour guide then had to translate), when all we wanted was a drink already!
Our first winery is Beretta – a small, family-owned bodega
The CEO, Leticia Villalba, is the winemaker and our tour guide for the afternoon
The pretty hacienda is over 120 years old
While the winery purchases most of the grapes for their everyday line of wines, they have an “experimental vineyard” where they are testing new grapes with different terroirs, to find the perfect combination for their premium wines
Lindsay gets photobombed in the vineyard by Becky, a fellow cruiser
Tasting the range of wines from Beretta Vineyards – only available to order via the winery’s wine club
Lindsay tries to act professional as we swig wine in front of our new friends, Becky and Paris
Our second winery was Juanico Vineyards – one of the biggest and most “corporate” winery in Uruguay (although at 3million cases it’s still seems like a quiant Mom & Pop shop compared to Lindsay’s former employer, Concha y Toro @ 33.2million). Nontheless, its perfectly manicured grounds were beautiful and its romantically-dusty basement cellar was both spooky and charming. The best part, however, was the tasting. These wines were GOOD. Juanico produces a large variety of styles and price ranges, but we got a good cross section with our 5-wine selection: two whites, two reds and a late-harvest dessert wine. Lindsay was a big fan of the Chardonnay/Viognier blend (a crisp and aromatic white – a tad heavy on the alcohol content, but it still tasted very well-balanced), while Igor loved the Tannat (Uruguay’s signature grape – a bold red with a lot of dark fruits flavors, and a nice spiciness from the oak aging). If we were going directly home, we would have bought a couple bottles.
Descending into the cellar of Juanico Vineyards
Both French oak and American oak barrels sit quietly in rows in the winery cellar
The cellar is dark, cool and dry – perfect conditions for aging wines
Juanico wines are age-worthy – the winery cellar is full of dusty bottles of fine wines
Our tour guide leads us into the large, well-lit hospitality celler for a wine tasting
Once again raising a glass and breaking bread with our new friends, with some *really delicious* Uruguayan vinos
Unfortunately for us, the Don Pascual line is only available to purchase in Florida, but the entry-level Pueblo del Sol is sold in New York
Sigh…all great things must come to an end. We returned to the ship and reluctantly started to pack our bags (hiding our unopened bottle of Nicolas Feuillatte in our backpack) before our last supper. The evening was full of farewells (surprisingly, we made quite a few acquaintances on this trip) as we bumped into people doing laundry and visiting the bar for one last nightcap. This has been the cruise of a lifetime – while I’d love to say, “we’ll be back,” it’s unlikely that we are going to have the vacation time (or money!) to swing something this extravagant ever again. Sigh…we peaked too early.
We rush back to the ship to try and catch the last 15min of the matinee show – a local tango troupe! We’ve been dying to see some Argentine Tango, but sadly we only caught the final set of their performance.
We are fully carnivores again for our last Seabourn dinner: beef carpaccio and rare beef tenderloin. Moo.
Lindsay chugs a final glass of champagne as she makes use of the onboard laundromat. As we are about to start bumming it around South America, we probably won’t get a chance to wash our clothes again for a long time.