June 25,2019: Wine and a Strike: What to do when the Government shuts down during your vacation to Uruguay

When the government shuts down, go to a private winery. Pizzorno. Great wines and good food.

Better to starve fighting than to starve working.-- A slogan of the Lawrence, Massachusetts "Bread and Roses" strike of 1912

     

 So last night at the hotel, we asked the desk clerk where the closest ATM was located so I could get $ for the wine tour today. They gave the location but said, "Go tonight because tomorrow no bank will be open." I asked if it was a holiday and they said, No. There's a big soccer game (and there was last night in which Uruguay beat rival Chile in Brazil 1-0), and no one is going to work tomorrow. Now we live in Knoxville, Tennessee where we can easily imagine someone taking a day off or sacrificing a virgin to see Tennessee Vols play football, but we thought it showed an amazing affinity for soccer that everyone in the country was taking off for a soccer game. We thanked our lucky stars that we booked a wine tour for today, because all the museums, post office and essentially most of the Uruguayan world was not working today. We later found out, however, that it was not sports enthusiasm run rampant, but a worker's strike in solidarity for the gas workers who were recently laid off in droves.  Oh capitalism and privately owned business--the great savior of this vacation day!

    Fortunately, this morning at a relatively decent hour, we were off to Canalones province where most of the Uruguayan wineries are. The drive was about 45 minutes from Montevideo and became scenic right at the end. We visited Pizzorno Winery, a family owned affair going back to about 1910 when the Italian family immigrated from the Piemonte region to start a Uruguayan winery. The wine is now being made by the "third generation." 

Family member, Francisco gave us a lovely tour.

     We were met at our hotel by the lovely Veronica of Wine Explorers who gave us a lift to the winery and good explanations of everything along the way. She is expecting her first child, a girl named Paz, in about 2 months, so she was not able to taste with us.

The facility was quite beautiful and they grow 11 varieties of grapes. Their wine specialties are tannat (a red grape we never heard of till we got here) and blends. They also have a lovely chardonnay sparkling. 

The posada at Pizzorno winery

Some of the biodynamic vineyards

We had a great tour of the barrel room where Francisco gave us a really nice explanation of the qualities of French, American, Polish and Hungarian oak and encouraged us to actually feel the wood grains for softness and "tightness of grain." He also explained about barrels and expenses in the wine business. I have to say after probably 25-30 winery tours worldwide, I have never had such an erudite experience about barrels and how it affects taste and cost. 

French, American and Polish barrels in that order left to right. 

He showed us their older equipment which they still use which are huge concrete tanks. They also have steel for some production. 

This tank holds 15, 200 liters. They have one that holds 60,000+ liters. 

    They mostly produce blends and tannats, but have a small sparkling chardonnay production. They also produce a lovely sauvignon blanc. 

Sparkling wine in production

    After this informative tour, it was off to the tasting and the lunch. I have to say I enjoy the concept of foreign wine tours where you just go to ONE winery and taste and have a nice lunch. They also do this in Italy. It is so much more enjoyable than riding around for 4-6 hours tasting multiple vineyards. Frankly, I don't enjoy having THAT MUCH wine in one day (and usually don't!)

Lunch with the Pirate and Veronica, wine tour coordinator extraordinaire!

Eggplant parmesan. Yum

    All in all, a nice tour with great wine and food and lovely hosts. We recommend touring Pizzorno Winery, if you find yourself in Montevideo.

    When we got back, all museums were closed, so we took off on a walk around downtown. The wind has literally HOWLED today and definitely blew most of the time at 20-30mph with bigger gusts. The temperature was 50F, but with the wind it seemed lower. We bought Paul a Uruguay hat to warm his shiny top. We actually found a tour of a private building that was open despite the shutdown and strike: Palacio Salvo. 

Palacio Salvo---when built in 1927, it was the tallest building in South America

    This building really stands out in downtown Montevideo for its height and generally unique architecture. Built as a luxury hotel, it NEVER was one. It is currently shared housing and office space---which is all it has ever been. But it is quite dramatic. There are two ballrooms on the second and third floors which were never used. There is beautiful wood and marble throughout. The top was going to be a functional lighthouse and that never happened either. But there is an amazing view of Montevideo from the top floor. 

Staircase to the top floor

View from the top. Rio Plata in the background. Sunsetting. Somewhere in the photo is our hotel. 

     Overall, this was an amazing building, but also an avenue of broken dreams. 

On the street outside the building my pirate finds a pirate sculpture to commune with.

   From here, it was on to dinner at Jacinto, a small but tasty restaurant in the Ciudad Viejo. We had small plates, which is all you need after such a big lunch. Paul was ecstatic that the restaurants were not on strike!

A toast to the striking workers from the pirate. 

    Another great day. We managed to work around the fact that there was a strike. We are told it will be over tomorrow. Since it is our last full day in Montevideo and we have museums we would love to see, we can only hope it is true.

Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized.

By Andre Simon, French wine merchant, gourmet and wine writer (1877–1970)

Paul's Ponderings:   Wow, the temperature and weather really changed here....it rained like crazy overnight and the wind was howling.    While the outside temp was about 50F during the day, with the wind, it was more like 40F.    That did not deter us from some great wine tasting and a nice meal.   The strike prevented us from visiting a museum late in the day, but we compensated that by catching a tour (in Spanish) at the Palacio Salvio, a crazy wedding-cake like building in downtown Montevideo.     

We ended the day at Jacinto with some small plates and some lovely red wine from the grape Tannat, which is new to us.     Coming and going, the wind was still pretty high, but we did get in a reasonable amount of walking and the restaurant was only a 5-6 minute walk away.

No more rain for our visit per the weather map, but likely continued cool temperatures.....oh well.   It's interesting to see the town in this season....less people, lovely plazas and squares in the cold-ish weather.      Tomorrow it's hopefully off to the fort and the Picasso exhibit, which should make for a great combo.