Mendoza Like Las Vegas?

I know that some will consider this a blasphemy, but bear with me.

Mendoza, Argentina is considered semi-desert (it receives only about 240 mm of rain a year) and is situated in a bowl surrounded by mountains, similar to Las Vegas. The city is artificially green like Las Vegas, with every street sporting beautiful lush trees which are watered through irrigation ditches that line every sidewalk. (The street trees and irrigation ditches are pictured below.) We also saw gated communities with cookie-cutter McMansions featuring red-tiled roofs, just as you would find in Las Vegas. And, finally, they have a few casinos in town!! (You will be happy to know that they haven’t seemed to embrace a love of neon, however.)

The intense agriculture that occurs in this arid region is entirely due to irrigation from local rivers since the surrounding area exists in the rain shadow of the Andes mountains and would not normally support much farming.

In fact, it is this ability to control vine water consumption along with the warm days and cold nights during the ripening season that allows growers to produce such flavorful grapes for wine production.

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