✈️Planning your visit

Mendoza has more than 1,500 wineries and the most developed wine-tourism infrastructure in South America. That is the good news. The catch: you cannot wing it.

Outside of Maipú's more relaxed estates, the best wineries work by reservation, and the standout ones — especially in the Uco Valley — book out their tastings and famous vineyard lunches weeks ahead. Arriving unannounced at a top bodega and hoping for a table is, as one guide put it, not a strategy.

A few honest pointers:

• Don't drive yourself if you plan to taste. The smart move is a private or small-group tour with a bilingual driver-guide who arranges the reservations for you. You taste; they drive.
• Pick one valley per day. The three are far enough apart that trying to combine them means seeing none of them properly.
• Book the lunches first. In wine country the long, paired winery lunch is the main event, not an afterthought. Secure those, then build the rest of the trip around them.