Chapter 2

Crossing Andes

and Chile

January 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

Sunday, Jan 19: Crossing the Andes

Today we would be crossing the Andes Mountains.  The Andes mountain range is really huge: the range measures 5,500 miles in length and had elevations as high as 22,800 feet.  It makes our Rocky Mountains look small. I knew all this and was expecting to be traveling over narrow twisting mountain roads with steep cliffs on both sides.  I was not at all sure we would make it all the way to the Pacific Ocean in one day.  (We almost didn’t!)  I was not exactly disappointed to learn that the roads traversed the valleys and seldom approached the heights of the taller peaks.  With one notable exception, there were no really twisting roads to maneuver through.  Let’s get started.

Leaving Mendoza, we first headed south for almost an hour before turning west, toward the mountains.  It was a beautiful day and we could look to our right and see some of the snow-covered mountains from quite some distance away.

We could see snow-covered peaks long before getting close.

We finally got into the mountains and enjoyed the beautiful views.  We were still in the valley and in the foothills, but could appreciate the larger mountain peaks to come.  We stopped a couple of times to allow photos of the landscape and I had to take advantage of the opportunity.

Approaching the real mountains

There were several streams and small rivers close to the road: after all, we were mostly following the valleys the rivers had cut over the many years.  There were also a couple of reservoirs that stored snow melt and let it out gradually over the summer months.  This snow-melt is what enabled the wineries (and other fruit growers) to irrigate their crops during the dry months.

About 2 hours into the trip, we stopped at the small town of Uspallata for a rest break and an (included) cup of coffee and a nice roll.  In the photo below, on the left side, you can see a group of people, all dressed in blue, getting a lesson on paddling a raft.  They were about to go on a rafting expedition on one of the rivers in the area.  The blue outfits would have to be somewhat water proof because the water (the snow-melt) is very cold and you would not want to get very wet.

Café Rio had a nice roll to accompany the cup of good coffee.

After a 30-minute break, we loaded back onto the bus and resumed our drive.  Our next stop would be at Puente del Inca, the site of a natural bridge and the results of some very highly mineralized water.  The water comes from a nearby hot spring and has so many minerals that any object left in the water for a couple of days will become completely encrusted in the colorful minerals.  The local people treat various objects in this way and then sell them in the several souvenir booths between the road and the viewing areas.  Over time, through floods and changing water levels, the banks of the river have become covered in these multi-colored minerals, making quite a colorful show. 

Some of the natural colors of Puente del Inca

Since we had most of the group in one place with a colorful background, we decided to get some photos of the group… well, most of the group.  I think a few people were checking out the souvenir booths.  Our local guide took photos using cameras (and phones) from the group.

The closest thing to a group photo from the trip

Back into the bus and another short photo stop as we got into the snow-covered peaks.  Remember, this is equivalent to our mid-July and there is still a lot of snow and ice up there.  We were approaching the highest altitude we would get, about 9,000 feet. 

I was happy we did not have to go much higher.

A little after noon, we got to the small town of Portal de Las Cuevas, where I think the primary business is accommodating people making the trip across the Andes.  We stopped here for lunch.  This lunch was certainly nothing fancy, but was rather “hearty” and filling and we had a reasonable choice of wine (Argentina, of course) to accompany the meal.

Some of the available wines

Soon after leaving the restaurant, we approached the border with Chile.  After crossing multiple borders in Europe, I was rather surprised at the “complexity” of going from Argentina to Chile.  First, a few miles from the border, we went through a rather quick Argentina check-point, although I’m not sure what its purpose was.  Just across the actual border, we entered a major Chile Customs and Immigration facility and suddenly, everything slowed down.  This was a Sunday, so perhaps they did not have a full staff, but this process ended up taking over two hours.  First, we sat in the bus for over an hour, awaiting our turn for processing.  Then our luggage was unloaded and taken inside the building for scanning.  (They have severe restrictions regarding anything resembling fresh fruit or agricultural products.)  In a little while we were led from the bus to a processing hall for a passport review and immigration processing.  This took about 2-3 minutes per person, a very procedural and manual process, and only one line for our group of 17 people.  Then we picked up our luggage, loaded it back onto the bus, and waited for everyone to complete the passport processing.  Our hosts and guides had told us to expect a lengthy process, but I think even they were surprised at how long this took.  By the time we left the facility, we were a little over an hour behind schedule, but things would get worse.

To lighten the mood a little, I will insert a little video here of part of our ride.  This time-lapse video includes one of our photo stops, our stop for lunch, and the stop at the Argentina check-point.  Apparently, we had been climbing through the mountains and, soon after crossing the border, we needed to lose a lot of altitude quickly as we encountered the “mother of all switch-backs”. 

And this is not all of it!

There were signs at some of the curves, with the number of that turn.  We had completed several switch-backs before I noticed the sign that said “Curve 19”, so there had to be close to 25 of these switch-backs.  We stopped for photos at about curve 17, so keep in mind there were another 7 or so turns behind us. It did take a while for our large bus to negotiate this road.  This appeared to be a very new road so I did wonder what kind of road was here prior to this new one.

Probably about an hour after the above switch-back road, we were on a 2 lane road in a wooded and rolling countryside when we came up on a string of stopped cars, and we stopped, and sat.  In the next 2 hours, we moved perhaps a quarter mile.  Some of the guides got on their radios or phones and found that there had been a significant residential fire alongside the road.  Vehicles did occasionally come from the other direction, but we went nowhere.  Finally, after over 2 hours, we started moving slowly, but we had to go about 2 miles before we got past the fire area where there were still lots of emergency vehicles and personnel.  We lost at least 2.5 hours here, so now we were about 3.5 – 4 hours behind schedule.

After a long day in the bus, we were very glad to see the hotel.

The rest of the drive was uneventful and we finally pulled into the Hotel Pullman in Viña del Mar, which is right next to Valparaiso.  It was a few minutes shy of 11:00.

Monday, January 20: Valparaiso and Casablanca

This day we would have two somewhat different activities: first a bit of a “city tour” of Valparaiso which turned out to be rather colorful, and then a short ride to the Casablanca area for lunch at a winery.  Now that it was light, we could get a better look at where our hotel was located: right on the waterfront in what seemed to be a busy part of the beach.

There is actually a very nice beach to the right of the photo.

Valparaiso city tour

I think everyone was a little groggy after the late arrival the night before, but we had breakfast in the hotel and soon gathered to board the bus for the short ride from Vina del Mar to Valparaiso and its harbor.  This harbor is primarily a normal freight harbor as most cruise ships and container ships use San Antonio harbor, a little to the south.   There was also some ship repair/overhaul activity, including a floating dry dock which was servicing a ship that we had seen several times in French Polynesia 8 or 9 years ago.

Valparaiso has a busy and colorful harbor.

Local guide duties were taken over for the rest of our trip by Nicolas, who turned out to be very interesting and informative.  Once we got into the wine areas, Nicolas seemed to know everyone.

Tour leader Britt Karlsson is listening very intently to Nicolas.

After a quick orientation around the harbor, Nicolas led us into the city proper.  My impression that South America was more like Europe than North America was reinforced by the very active market in square or plaza in the middle of the city.

Open air market among several government buildings

Valparaiso has one rather unique feature: it is a very hilly city, (some say it has 43 hills but I did not count them) and when settled in the 1800s, there was no good way for people to move between the upper and lower parts of the city.  So, they built “elevators”… lots of them.  At one time there were more than 30 elevators spread around the city, but now there are only 4 operational. The elevators charge a small amount per person to save a lot of walking up stairs.  Since we wanted to get to the higher sections of the city, we got to use one of the remaining elevators.  Unlike what we think of elevators, they do not go up and down vertically, but at an angle, more like a very small incline railway.

Looking up the elevator, where we were going

It was a short ride, but interesting and much quicker and easier than walking.

Looking back down where we came from: the cars are rather small.

Once we got to the higher level, we did have a nice view over the city and surrounding area.  Although you do not get a hint of it here, we were soon to find that Valparaiso offers a unique and colorful personality.

The view from the high end of the elevator

From this vantage point we cold look out over the same harbor that we had seen from the lower level, as well as views in several other directions.  But then Nicolas called our attention to some rather unique and colorful wall art, or wall paintings.  Most of the wall paintings in Valparaiso are done with an agreement between the building owner and the painter: it is an inexpensive way to have an exterior wall painted and good practice for the painter. 

The first of the wall paintings we saw

Most of the paintings are colorful and many may be trying to communicate a message.  We will see a major “political cartoon” in a few minutes to demonstrate that aspect of these paintings. 

Possibly in support of Pelicans or protecting sea life?

Some paintings actually serve a commercial pourpose as well as being a work of art.  The painting below is on the entrance gate of a restaurant.  Nicolas said that, until the painting was done to “spruce up” the gate, business at the restaurant was rather poor, but the new entrance painting brought a significant uptick in the business.  To my way of thinking, the young woman in the painting seems to have a bit of a doubtful expression, as she looks right at Nicolas.

Is she looking at the Leopard, or at Nicolas?

Some paintings have a definite “modern art” style to them, like the one below that (if I have my artists straight), sure looks like some Salvadore Dali works.

Salvadore Dali, or ??

Then we get to the political cartoons, and the one below is the grand-daddy of them all.  Every little part of the painting below has some significance related to current and historical events in Chile.  Nicolas spent probably 15 minutes explaining what parts of the painting represented, but only got through maybe 20% of the painting. 

Worlds largest political cartoon?

I should point out that these photos only capture a small part of the wall paintings, probably less than 10%; these painting were everywhere.  They covered about every possible subject (yes, even cats, below) and were on every kind of surface.

There were several paintings featuring cats.

Take a close look at the painting just below of a young girl running down a street.  The “painting” is actually completely on the vertical part of a flight of stairs, (the risers).  When looked at from the vantage point of the camera, it looks like one continuous painting, but it is actually about 30 separate paintings carefully lined up to look like a single piece of art.

One painting, or 30?

Again, we saw many more paintings than are represented here, and there were many paintings that we did not see.  I was a bit surprised that we did not see any active painting in progress. After a good look around, we met up with our bus, loaded up, and headed to Casablanca.

Casablanca and Casas del Bosques.

No, not “that” Casablanca….  This Casablanca is a region of Chile about 20 or 30 miles southeast of Valparaiso.  This wine growing region is a relative newcomer to the Chile wine scene, but has recently become known for producing very good grapes for white wines.  Apparently, there is a local micro-climate formed between the dry areas to the east, and the cooling influence of the nearby Pacific Ocean.  Although best known for their white wines, they are also producing some lighter reds, such as Pinot Noir.  We pulled into the winery of Casas del Bosques where a large table in their restaurant was waiting for us.  We had an excellent lunch (with the required empanadas), accompanied by much of their very nice wines. 

Thankfuly the table was ready because most of us were hungry.

The Syrah (below) was probably one of the more robust wines and, while very pleasant, it was not quite as dense and flavorful as most of the Syrahs we had in Argentina.  Based on the characteristics of the Casablanca area, I wonder if the grapes for this wine may have come from further inland.

This Syrah was surprisingly full-bodied for the Casablanca area

This was a very low-key winery visit: we just wandered around the winery a while and checked out their flower garden.  We did not have a winery or vineyard tour or any full-blown tasting, but that was OK as we had seen plenty of stainless steel tanks and oak barrels already.

Wineries and flower gardens tend to go together.

Apparently, thunderstorms and hail are not as much of a threat here in Chile as I don’t remember seeing any of the hail nets here.  There was one cute sign-post next to the vineyard, pointing to some of the more well-known wine growing areas of the world.  I do have to wonder a little though: why are there none of the US areas (Napa?) on the sign?

I think they need a couple more pointers.

We loaded back into the bus and headed back to our hotel, getting there early enough for Susan and I to tke a bit of a walk.  We checked out the beach to the north where you could walk along the waterfront for quite a distance.

The sand was sort of course and brown and the water was cold, but a beach is always nice.

If you look at the photo above, you may notice that there are not many people out in the water beyond knee-deep.  The Pacific Ocean water is cold!  The ocean currents are flowing up from Antarctica and the temperature reflects that.

This is not a small beach town!

I was somewhat surprised at the high degree of development in this area: there were a lot of large resort type buildings along the beach and what appeared to be large condo developments just a block or two off the beach.  The lagoon below was lined with modern apartment and condo buildings. 

A quiet inlet from the ocean

We had a nice walk up the beach about a mile, then back the other direction, past a ferris-wheel and to the inlet above.  It was starting to get dark, so we headed back to the hotel for our usual cheese, crackers, carrots, and wine snack-dinner.

Tuesday, January 21: San Antonio to Santa Cruz

Today, we were changing our base of operations, from Vina del Mar to the town of Santa Cruz in the Colchagua, region, an area well known for very good wines.  Of course, we have to stop at a winery and have a tasting and lunch on the way.

Many people will know of the city and port of San Antonio, south of Casablanca, but it is also the name of the region the city is in.  Besides the port, the San Antonio area is also known as a major wine growing region.  Because it is very close to the cooling influence or the Pacific Ocean, the primary grapes grown here are pinot noir, chardonnay, and sauvignon blanc although several other varieties are also grown here.  The ocean breezes often bring cool mists and even the occasional spring frost.

After packing up and leaving the hotel, we rode for about 90 minutes, arriving at the boutique winery Casa Martin.  It was founded in 2000 by winemaker Maria Luz Marin and they claim to be the closest winery to the Pacific Ocean.  Felipe Martin is now the winemaker and is in charge of production: we will meet him at the tasting. 

Entrance of the Casa Martin winery

We were met by a friendly hostess who first made sure we all had a glass of rose to try while she introduced us to the vineyard and winery.

There were several of these mannequins decorating the winery grounds.

When María Luz Marín proposed establishing a winery in the town of Lo Abarca, less than three miles from the ocean, most wine experts warned her that wine grapes would never be productive here.  She and her son Filipe have proved them wrong with award winning wines, although in sometimes frustratingly small volumes.

It was a bright sunny day, but you could feel the coolness from the ocean.

Although the growing conditions are difficult for the grapes, the calcium carbonate and other minerals in the soil, the cool weather, and steady winds produce strong vines with wonderfully flavored fruit.  Grape vines that must endure harsh conditions often produce outstanding fruit and that appears to be the case at Casa Martin.

A nice size barrel room

After hearing about the vineyard and having a short tour of the winery, it was time to taste the Casa Martin wines.  Felipe Martin joined us to lead the tasting.  The tasting was nicely done, with separate glasses for each wine, which I appreciate so I can go back and forth between several different wines.

I’m glad that I am not the “glass washer”.

As would be expected for such a cool climate set of wines, they were all on the light side.  The Syrah was reasonably full bodied, but they did mention that getting a good crop of syrah grapes is a bit of a gamble with the short, cool growing season.  All the other wines were the expected whites (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling), a rose, and Pinot Noir.  Growing wine grapes in their climate is certainly risky, but they seem to have figured out how to do it, and do it well.

The line-up of tasting wines

Filipe Martin, the owner and production manager

After the tasting, we filed into a separate building that houses their restaurant, Bianco.  As with all the winery meals we have had, it was a very complete and very tasty meal.  We won’t need a big dinner tonight.

The Syrah and Pinot seemed to be the most popular wines at the table.

With lunch over, we loaded onto the bus and now headed further inland, probably 50 miles or so inland, and about 125 miles south.  Away from the ocean the climate warmed up quite a bit and we now saw lots of various fruits and vegetables growing in fields alongside the road.  If you have ever had fruit from Chile (and you have), it probably came from this very fertile and productive area.  We were headed to the town of Santa Cruz, in the Colchagua, region.  This is really the heart of the wine (and fruit) growing region of Chile.  Even the statue in the middle of town celebrates the wine production of the area with women stomping grapes on a big wooden vat.

Our hotel, built in a hacienda style, also included a casino and a museum for the local area, although we did not visit either of them.  Some of the others in our group who did visit the museum said it was surprisingly interesting. The main entrance to the hotel was right across the road from a small park which was undergoing a major renovation so the road was impassable for our bus, making our daily access to and from the bus a bit of a walk. 

After getting settled in our room, Susan and I took a short walk to find a food store to restock our supply of cheese, crackers, and carrots for our evening snacks.  I will note here that, while we are pretty comfortable wandering around in unfamiliar places, Santa Cruz was a bit more difficult than most, mainly because it is not generally a big “tourist town”.  There were few, if any, signs in English and we had to test our meager knowledge of Spanish.  While the people were certainly friendly, once outside of the hotel and restaurants, English was generally a “foreign language”.  We did come across a large market where we found what we were looking for and got through the somewhat strange way of using a credit card.

We ended up walking around the small park several times and I could not help but notice the very tall Palmetto Palms in the park.  I don’t know how old they are, but I estimated that they must be 100 feet tall.  I have never before seen any palm tree this tall, much less a Palmetto Palm.  I assume that either they never get strong winds here, or the palms are very flexible and just bend with the wind.

The Palmetto Palms were amazing.

After our shopping trip, we gathered some wine, some snack materials, and headed to the pool area to enjoy the pleasant evening.  We did see a couple of cats, but over the next couple of days, we were never able to make friends of them, although they were glad to get some of our cheese.

Wednesday, January 22:  Colchagua region

Today would be a bit different and very interesting as we visited two wineries.  At the first winery, Viña Montgras, we would learn about blending wine and then test our skills. Then at Viña Maquis, we would learn about their very comprehensive biodiversity practices and enjoy a very nice lunch.  Both wineries are in the Colchagua region, fairly close to Santa Cruz.

Vina Montgras

Montgras is considered a moderate sized winery for Chile, although it seemed plenty big to me.  They have vineyards in several regions of Chile, totaling over 100 hectares (250 acres) with some being planted more than 100 years ago.  The main vineyard and winery is in the Cochagua region and is the one that we will be visiting.

Entrance to the main Montgras winery

Our visit to Montgras turned out to be somewhat educational, beyond just the normal tasting.  We were first met by an older gentleman, I wish I could remember his name, and I was initially afraid that an older person like this would be big on uninteresting history and such.  But no…  he was a bit of a hoot!  He started off leading us into the vineyard where he proceeded to give us a surprisingly interesting lesson on identifying grape varieties by the shape of the leaf.  I think all of us will remember how to identify a Merlot leaf. 

Heading into the vineyard

He went over several of the popular varietals, such as Malbec, Cabernet Sav., and Carménère, and while there is no way we were going to remember them all, it was an interesting lesson.

Based on the leaf shape, I believe this is a Carménère vine.

After learning about leaf shapes, out host led us on a visit to the winery where we saw types of some equipment we had not seen previously.  For example, they had a huge filtering machine.  It is intended to filter the wine to remove the last of the solids that have not settled out in the fermentation and initial aging process.  It was filtering some red wine with the residue being deposited on a large drum, then scraped off the drum, and finally carried away for later use as a component in animal feed.

This is a big filter!

You can probably get a better idea of just how it is working in this video of the filter drum.  We continued on through the winery, touring the rather large barrel room and then continuing into the basement where they have a sort of classroom set up for us.

They also, of course, had a lot of barrels you cannot see.

The “classroom” looked almost like a laboratory, with glasses, a funnel, and graduated cylinders.  We’re going to try our hands at blending wine.  Each participant had a funnel, a graduated cylinder, three glasses with wine (Cab, merlot, and Carménère) in them and one empty glass.  The objective was to mix/blend the three wines to make a combination/blend that perhaps we might like better than any one of the individual wines.  Of course, some of the greatest wines in the world, such as Bordeaux wines, are actually blends, so we would give it a try.

The starting point

Each of us mixed the different wines into a blend that we liked, keeping track of the approximate amounts/percentages of each of the three wines we used.  Once we each had a “formula” for our blend, we measured and poured the appropriate amount of each wine from a large jug into the graduated cylinder and then into a wine bottle.  For example, I decided on a 50/30/20 blend: (50% Cab. (375ml), 30% merlot (225ml), 20% Carménère (150 ml), so I measured out the respective amounts of each wine and poured it into the wine bottle.  Once we had our bottle filled, it was time to cork it.

Nicolas helped Per cork his bottle while Britt documented the event.

There was a manual corking “machine” to insert the corks into the bottles: I actually have a very similar device for when I made some wine long ago.  But, despite having some experience with this corking process, I managed to get a little heavy handed and broke the cork into several pieces as it was inserted, requiring a tedious removal of the broken cork and another (successful) attempt.  (I actually think the cork was defective, but since no one would believe that, I won’t even try it.)  Once we had the cork in the bottle, it was time to apply the wax seal.

A dip in the red sealing wax and it was sealed

A quick dip in the pot of hot wax, while rotating the bottle for an even coating, and the bottle was sealed.  These days, I would actually use a heat-shrink capsule over the top of the bottle for anything like this, which is what I use on my bottles of Flaming Gator Pepper Sauce.  But, I guess the red wax sealing is a bit more “romantic”.  We then hand wrote a label which we applied to our bottles and we were done with the blending exercise. 

Our group was too big for the very nice wine library tasting room.

When everyone had their personal blend in hand, we went upstairs for a nice tasting of their wines.  Although the wines were all nice, after the fun of the blending exercise, the tasting was a bit anticlimactic and, unfortunately, I remember little about it.  With our blends in hand, we boarded the bus for our next winery visit.

Vina Maquis

The Maquis vineyard and winery has a long history, dating back to the eighteenth century when it was established by Jesuit priests.  In the 19^th century, it was owned by two Chilean presidents which had some bridges built across the rivers bordering the vineyards.  The vineyards were purchased by the Hurtado family and in 1923 they built a (relatively) large winery in what was one of the first concrete buildings in Chile.  The current modern winery was built in 2002.  While the history of the winery and vineyard is certainly interesting, what they are doing in and around the vineyard today is even more so.  The current owner, Richardo Hurtado (the 4^th generation to own and manage the winery) is excited, maybe even obsessed, with the bio-dynamic efforts they are undertaking at Maquis.  He spent several hours with us, including an extensive tour of what he calls the “Biological Corridor” at the heart of the vineyard. 

Richardo Hurtado with part of the Biological Corridor behind him

One feature that makes this vineyard unique is that there are two rivers that flow along two sides of the vineyard, providing both water and some natural barriers for the vineyard.  Everything in the vineyard is natural and organic and, from what I observed, they probably greatly exceed the legal requirements for these labels.  Viña Maquis was one of the first wine producers in Chile to gain its Sustainability Certification.

Ricardo took us on quite a tour of the Biological Corridor and part of the vineyard.

As part of the Sustainability Certification, they use solar energy for a significant part of their electrical power, have a geothermal based heat pump system to save on electricity and gas requirements, and even use 2600 sheep in the vineyards to control weeds in the winter and provide some natural fertilizer.

One of the rivers that border the vineyards

After the impressive tour of their sustainability efforts in the vineyard, we went to the hacienda for more information about the wines produced here.  Richardo took us through their wines and the different labels or qualities that they produce.

Richardo discussing their various levels of wine and the varietals they produce

In Chile, they have established the concept of an “Icon Wine”.  In general, some of the better wineries identifies one or a couple of their very best wines as their “Icon wine”.  Icon wines are supposed to be the very best that Chile has to offer and considered to be equal to wines from the best wine regions of the world.  When a winery labels a wine to be an Icon, it better be very good.  The wine that Maquis has labeled as an Icon is their Cabernet Franc, “Franco”, and it is Chile’s first Icon wine. 

We went into their tasting room to try some of their wines.  (If you go to the top of this page, that is their tasting room in the small photo at the very top right.)  They poured a couple of somewhat unusual whites, their Lien and Viola.  There were also the usual reds, such as the Carménère and Cabernet Sauv. and we did get to taste some of their Franco Cabernet Fran.  Yes, it is very good.  (For reference, the list price on the Franco is about $120 - $200 per bottle, depending on vintage.) 

Some of the wines in the tasting

After the tasting we headed outside to their patio for a very nice lunch.  As usual, it was a very full meal at about mid-afternoon.

Britt is making sure everyone is taken care of.

Although we had been told that, after so much beef in Argentina, we would get plenty of fish in Chile, it was not happening.  Here at Maquis we had “beef in slow reduction with blueberries” which was very good, but where is their fish?

The starter was a Tomato and Strawberry Gazpachio: very pretty

After a delicious meal we waddled…er.. walked back to the bus for the ride back to Santa Cruz and the hotel.  Once again, Susan and I were too full to go out to dinner, so we took a walk through town and enjoyed some wine and snacks around the hotel pool.

Thursday, January 23: Colchagua (Lolol)

Today we would be going to the Lolol sub-region of the Cochagua valley.  Lolol is in the southwestern part of Cochagua and is a little closer to the Pacific Ocean, so a little cooler than where we were the day before, but still very dry.  The days are still warm to hot, but the nights cool off significantly.  As before, we will visit two wineries that are somewhat different.

Nerkihue Vineyards   

We would start the day with a small winery: very small.  We pulled up to the Nerkihue winery and vineyard and were greeted by the owner’s friendly German Shepard.  The owner and winemaker was Bernado Arteaga, a friendly and very pleasant fellow.  He appeared to be about 90% of the winery staff: I don’t think we saw anyone else on the property during our visit. 

Vineyards surrounded what I believe is the winery building.

We walked past the somewhat rough building that I believe is the actual winery and into another building for the tasting.  I soon realized that this was Bernardo’s home: some of us were seated around his dining table and others sat in chairs in the living room.  In addition to being a winemaker, Bernado was also a musician and various kinds of musical instruments and equipment was scattered around the house.

Bernardo’s vineyards are definitely in the rolling hills of the valley.

The house/winery and the vineyards were on the hills surrounding the valley where many of the other vineyards are located.  While hillsides can often provide a better quality of wine grape, they are also more difficult to tend and harvest.  Bernardo has 22 hectares (about 50 acres) of vineyard: certainly on the small end of the winery size scale.

The hillside location looked out across the flat Colchagua valley.

The vineyard and winery adheres to all natural and biodynamic practices and the wines see minimum intervention during their processing and aging.  And speaking of aging, Bernado and his Nerkihue winery are another believer in a few years adding character to the wines, although perhaps not quite as extreme as Weinert winery.  All of the wines we tasted were at least 6 years old and one was a 2009 vintage.

We tasted his cabernet sauvignon, petit verdot, syrah, carménère, malbec, chardonnay, and two blends.

During the tasting, I felt somewhat sorry for the dog: he was shut outside and spent much of the time at a window watching us and obviously wanting to be inside with us.  We went through the normal 7 wine tasting and then Bernardo offered to let us try one of their special “Family Collection” wines, a 2009 blend.

The regular (2019) blend was good, but the 2009 Justo blend would qualify as “Special”.

This was definitely a small winery, but the wines were all very good to excellent.  A large fancy winery is obviously not needed to make very good wine.  We said good-by to the dog and loaded back into the bus for the short ride to the next winery.

Hacienda Araucano   

The Hacienda Araucano property covers about 200 hectares (although not all is planted in vines), so roughly ten times as big as the Nerkihue Vineyards we had just left and that would be considered a medium size vineyard in Chile.  The owner and winemaker, François Lurton, came to Chile in 1992 and bought the land for the vineyard in 2000, making his first vintage a couple of years after that.  The vineyards appeared to include both quite a few hillside plots as well as some in the relatively flat valley floor. 

The winery building at Hacienda Araucano: relatively new but certainly not fancy

Getting to the winery was a bit of an adventure.  The approach was along several miles of narrow, single lane dirt roads that did not have room for two vehicles to pass in opposite directions, especially a large bus and a truck.  A couple of times we had to back up to a wide place in the road and move over to make room for a truck to pass in the other direction.  We were met at the winery parking lot by our hostess for the visit and she led us along the pathway up the hill to the “Hacienda”.  On the walk we were reminded of the desert-like nature of this area when we saw several cactus plants thriving alongside the grape vines.

A reminder of just how dry this area is

I’m not sure just how the vines are thriving as well as it appears they are as I don’t believe there is any form of irrigation in this vineyard.  They would not be able to use flood irrigation on a hillside like this and I do not see any drip irrigation pipes running among the vines.  A short, but somewhat steep, walk brought us to the hacienda: On the top floor, it has a large open room where we enjoyed the tasting.  It was obviously set up to host groups such as ours and even larger.  Based on the appearance from the outside, there appears to be some living quarters in the bottom floor, possibly bedrooms and such. I have no idea if anyone was living there at the time or if it could be rented for private use.

The outside view of the hacienda

From the inside and from the large open deck, we had a great view of the valley and vineyards.  I made sure my seat at the tasting table looked out over this view.

The view form the inside

The winery makes several lines or brands of wine for different price points and we tasted several of them, including their CLO, Humo Blanco and Araucano which included Sauvignon Blanc, a white blend, a Pinot Noir, a Syrah,, a Cabernet Franc, and a Carmenere.  All were good, although I don’t remember any being especially memorable.

Some of the tasting wines

After the tasting we moved to an outside patio area with covered serving and eating areas.  Some ladies had laid out quite a spread and had some special fruity drinks to try also.  If you check the food on the table in the photo below, this was just the appetizers.  The real meal was yet to come.

This is just the appetizers

The meal included a salad, bread, some simple fresh veggies and the usual grilled meats (never just one kind) and, of course, more sampling of the wines.   After the meal was over the “grill-master” and his assistant came out from behind the building to take a bow and receive a round of applause.

The Grill-master and assistant

We took one more look at the nice view of the Lolol valley and ambled back down the hill to the waiting bus.

A last look at the Lolol Valley

When we got back to the hotel, we took another walk in the downtown area and explored a little more around the hotel and casino vicinity.  We again took some wine and snacks to the hotel’s pool area to enjoy the evening and relax.  We also looked for the cats that wandered around the hotel and left them a few snacks of their own. 

Friday, January 24: Colchagua

Today we head to the northwest of Santa Cruz, towards the town of Machigüe. We will once again visit two wineries that share some similarities but are also quite different.  Both wineries are relatively new, less than 20 years old, and both are very much a family project.  The main difference is in the size of the two wineries and, well, the age of their owners.

La Despensa

Our first stop is at La Despensa winery, owned and managed by an Englishman, Matt Ridgeway.  Matt came into the wine business in a somewhat unusual manner, having made his initial foray into business in the real estate world.  He was doing reasonably well in real estate about 15 years ago when he noticed all the new wineries and vineyards being established in the area.

The main winery barrel room and storage building

He says that he looked into the process of making wine, decided it was not too complicated and that he could do that.  Besides, he was tired of real estate and wanted to try something different.  It is obvious that he has now been smitten with the artistry of making wine, from planting the vines to bottling the finished product.  His vineyard is not very large, something like 10 hectares, but with his real estate background, I expect it to grow.

Matt: not your typical winery owner or wine maker

For such a small vineyard, he certainly has quite a variety of grapes, including a couple that have seen very little use in the Colchagua valley.  Matt took us on an interesting walk through his vineyard, discussing the different grapes he is growing, including the more common grenache, syrah, marselan and mourvèdre, and the much less common marsanne and viognier.  He even has started growing Sangiovese, which we sampled in our tasting.  Considering the large number of Italians who immigrated to Argentina and Chile, I had been surprised that there were not more Italian varietals being grown, so I was glad to see his Sangiovese.

I got the impression that Matt could tell a story about every vine in the vineyard.

After the vineyard tour, we headed to a somewhat covered outdoor patio area with a large table set with lots of wine glasses.  The area was semi-covered with wood slats, alternating the slats and open space, allowing the breeze to come through but keeping some of the sun out.  In the somewhat striped sunlight, it did give a strange appearance.  Matt is not afraid to do things differently and the first wine was a rather bright pink in color, a Cinsault, Roussanne, and Syrah blend he called “The Fizz”.  It was lightly sparkling, being made in Col Fondo style (I had to look that up) and then capped with a soda-bottle type cap.  Totally different, but very pleasant on a warm day as we had.

Everything was in stripes.

We continued the tasting, enjoying both the wine and the rather playful labels.  Some of them featured his pets and some were just artsy fun.  Continuing the different style, some of his blends are “Field Blends”.  Rather than fully processing the different grapes to their representative wines then blending that, he mixes the grapes together before they are even crushed then ferments and processed the blended mixture.

One of the Field Blends

As mentioned earlier, I was glad to see the Sangiovese as a bit of a nod to the many Italian people who had settled in the area.  Besides, it was very good. 

Some more of the somewhat unusual lables

Matt is very much a “hands on” person, from actually building some of the winery structures, to planting the vines, and making the wine, everything at La Despensa has his touch.  After an interesting visit and tasting, we loaded up and headed to our next winery to visit.

La Sirca

La SircaIs a a family boutique winery managed by Michelle and Mauricio.  They make organic wines from chardonnay, carménère, cabernet sauvignon and other grapes started 2009.  La Sirca is also a relatively young winery, having been started in 2009.  It was also started by a man, Maurice Etienne, who came from a different business realm, mainly construction and forestry, and who decided to get into the wine arena.  It is also very much a family business, with Maurice’s daughter, Michelle, playing a major role in the business and several other family members participating in various roles.  Although still considered a “Boutique Winery”, it is much larger than La Despensa.  I could not find the size of the estate, but based on what I saw, I think it would have to be in the 30 – 40 hectare range, or bigger.  When Maurice Etienne decided to go into a new business, he does not do it on a small scale.  The winery itself, the extensive hospitality facilities and the landscaped grounds all suggest a lot of planning and investment.

We started our tour with a visit to the winery and production facilities. 

No doubt what winery we are in.

For such a young winery, there were very extensive facilities and equipment.  I suspect that some of the facilities may be contracted out to other growers who don’t have their own winery capabilities.  In the sparkling wine aging room, they still turn the bottles by hand in the racks.

Not a huge sparkling wine project, but all done using the Champagne method.

One, somewhat unusual, feature that I have not see in any other winery tour, is the “laboratory”.  There are definitely some steps in wine making that would benefit from the use of a complete and organized lab such as we saw at La Sirca, but I think it is usually carried out in some “back room” rather than in a purpose-built facility.  When we questioned our host about this lab, he said that they make the facility available to other winemakers in the area, reinforcing my assumption that La Sirca contracts out their space and facilities to other vineyards and wine labels.

An unusual winery feature: a laboratory

The barrel room was rather large and contained a lot of wine for the size of the La Sirca vineyards, suggesting that some of these barrels contain wine from other producers who are using the facilities here.

There is a lot of wine in that barrel room!

After the tour, it was time for lunch so we were taken to a very nicely set and shaded table on their outside patio.  As usual, we had a very complete and tasty meal with an appetizer (empanadas), salad, main course (beef!) and dessert, but the real highlight of the meal had to be the wines. 

Another full meal, and the wines were very good.

All of the wines were good, but I made special note of the Carmenere and Cabernet Sauvignon.  Like most of the wine we have had on the tour, the La Sirca wines were very reasonably priced, with most of the ones we enjoyed being in the $12 - $18 (per bottle, local prices) range. 

The Carmenere ($15) and Cabernet Sauvignon ($15) were especially good. 

After enjoying lunch, the entire family gathered in the hospitality building for a photo-op and to say good-by. 

The owner, Maurice, is third from the left in the white T-shirt.

Besides their wine, La Sirca is getting into the “hospitality” business.  Their facilities are set up for hosting wine tour groups (like ours), special events like weddings or anniversaries, and they even have a few cabins they rent out on a daily or weekly basis for anyone that wants a good rest or to become more immersed in the wine.  The whole family seemed to be much like Maurice: very friendly and also very energetic.  After saying good-by, we loaded back into the bus and rode back to our Santa Cruz hotel,

Susan and I took a longer walk this afternoon, exploring more “off the beaten track” areas of Santa Cruz.  After walking a couple of miles and then relaxing a while, we decided that we could manage to actually eat some dinner this evening.  Per had mentioned that there was an Italian restaurant that made good pizzas just down the street from our hotel and, after a steady diet of meats, a simple pizza sounded good.  Of course, the restaurants do not even open until 8:00PM, so we waited until that time to head out, getting to the restaurant about 8:10.  There was another couple outside the restaurant seeming to be discussing whether to go in or not, but they went in just ahead of us.  The restaurant was fairly large with an open atrium in the middle and seating around it, so plenty of tables and seats, but we were the only ones there.  We had some language issues with the server but were finally successful in ordering a pizza and bottle of wine.  About 9:00 some other people drifted in and by about 9:30, when we left, they were starting to get busy.  We are just not used to such late dinners.

Saturday, January 25: Santa Cruz to Santiago

Today we will be leaving Santa Cruz and heading to Santiago, with a stop at a winery along the way.  Riding on the bus anywhere in this area, and especially in the Colchagua Valley, you will see nothing but fruit orchards and vineyards.  We sometimes debated whether the orchards were growing cherries, or apples, or plums and whether the grapes were wine grapes or eating grapes or grapes for raisins.  Just to give you an idea of what this looks like from the bus, here is a short video of the typical roadside view.

El Principal Winery

After about a 90 minute ride, we got to the Maipo region, the wine growing area closest to Santiago.  There were still many vineyards in this area and we stopped at the El Principal winery for a tour and tasting lunch.  El Principal is a moderate sized winery, beyond the “Boutique” size of the wineries we visited the previous day, but still not the huge size of some of the really large producers.  The setting for the winery was certainly impressive, with high mountains just a short distance away and vineyards going part-way up the mountain slopes.

The view across the terrace: Those vineyards all belong to El Principal.

The view from the terrace was beautiful, with mountains and vineyards.  Our hostess said that practically all the vineyards you could see from here belonged to El Principal.  The winery building was large and impressive and turned out to be even larger than it first appeared.

Walking to the ground level entrance of the winery:   A rather big facility

The ground floor of the winery had the crushing equipment and, again, lots of stainless steel fermentation tanks.  We got the usual information about the winery from our hostess as she led us through the equipment and out the other end of the building and told us to stand on a section of what appeared to be a large concrete slab. After standing there a few seconds, we heard a noise and then this happened.  We were on a very open freight elevator that took us down to the storage level and barrel rooms.

This barrel room has 4-high barrel racks!

From the big barrel room, we went to the “impressive” barrel room, configured and lit to maximize the visual effect.  Being a bit skeptical, I tapped on four or five barrels as we walked through this room and all of the barrels, I tested were empty.  This room was really just for show, although I’m sure it could be used for full barrels in the future.

Impressive, but empty, barrel room

Our tasting lunch was to be picnic style on a hill overlooking the vineyards, some distance from the winery, so we loaded back into our bus and the winery hostess got in her Jeep to guide us to the picnic area.  We rode about a mile through the vineyards on small dirt roads what were a little unusual for a bus the size of ours.  At one point we came to a “T” intersection where we needed to turn left about 110 degrees.  I looked at the road and immediately realized that there was no way the bus could make that turn without plowing through several rows of vines.  Our hostess realized what had happened, came back to us, and, after consulting with our driver, headed off in another direction.  Our bus had to back up about a quarter mile before getting turned around and able to foillow the Jeep.  We ended up riding quite a bit further and seeing a lot more vineyards that initially planned before getting to the bottom of the hill where the picnic facilities were located.  The Jeep went right on up the hill with no problem, but I knew there was no way the bus was going up that dirt road.  We all got out of the bus and those of us who could, walked up the hill while those less mobile were shuttled up the hill in the Jeep and another 4-wheel-drive vehicle.  It was a fairly long steep hill with somewhat poor footing.  The grapes on the vines alongside the road/path were getting close to ripe, so every couple of rows I passed, I’d stop and pick a couple of the riper grapes and taste them.  I was purely checking the ripeness at the various levels in the vineyard, I was not doing it just to stop and rest occasionally.  (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) 

A long picnic table was set with dinner ware and wine glasses.

We all finally made it up the hill to the lunch facility where a chef was grilling some steaks and there were lots of wine and wine glasses set out.  It had been a rather warm climb up the hill, so I suspect that most of us got a good drink of cold water before trying the wines.

It was a beautiful view from up here: Notice the bus at the bottom of the hill.

The photo above gives you a good idea of the view in one direction, but it was almost the same in all directions around us.  Check this panoramic video for a better feel of the surrounding area.  But, the grill-master was about done and it was time to eat and taste wine.

The Grill Master/Chef at work in his kitchen

El Principal was founded in 1993 by Frenchman Jean Paul Valette and he brought much of his wine making techniques with him.  The focus here is really on Cabernet Sauvignon and blends using it as the primary base.  Several other varietals are grown here also, for use by themselves and to blend.  The winery is sometimes referred to as the “Bordeaux of South America”.  While the inclusion of Carmenere in a Bordeaux blend is a bit unusual, it sure seemed to work in the El Principal blends.  All of the wines were good, but I really liked the Calicanto blend (Cabernet, Syrah. Petit Verdot, Carmenere, and Malbec).  We had enough food and wine to make us almost forget that we had to get back down that hill to the bus.

The Calicanto blend was good!

Going down the hill was actually a bit tricky because of the poor footing along the dirt road with lots of loose gravel, but we all made it and climbed back into the bus for the ride to Santiago.

It took about another hour to get into Santiago proper where we had a short bus tour of some of the highlights of the city.  With a population of over 5 million people, it is a large city and is very spread out with several sections of large buildings and high-density population.  Nicolas provided a very good running commentary while our driver maneuvered our bus through the sometimes narrow streets.

Arms Square, which houses many government offices

This was a Saturday and there were many people out enjoying the beautiful, sunny weather.  There appeared to be a number of parks, although probably not as many or as large as Buenos Aires, and there were lots of people enjoying them.

One of the many parks and green spaces

The Mapocho River flows through much of Santiago and, for much of this distance, there is a very nice green space along its banks.  We’ll see more of this tomorrow.  There are, of course, multiple large churches and cathedrals throughout the city.  At one of the more famous of them, the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago, street vendors and people were taking advantage of the shade it offered on a very sunny afternoon.

Taking advantage of the shade of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago

Since Santiago is the capital of Chile, there are quite a few government buildings.  Some of the older buildings have been replaced by newer, more efficient buildings and the old ones converted into some kind of museum or art gallery, The building that initially housed the Congress of Chile (completed in 1876) had been through multiple official uses and currently houses the Chamber of Deputies but is generally open to the public.

The former house of the Chilean National Congress

I’m not sure if the street vendors were out in such force because this was a Saturday, or it this is a daily occurrence, but they were definitely in evidence.  In some places, such as at the Metropolitan Cathedral (above) they used tables to display their wares, but in other places they just placed sheets or towels on the ground and laid out their goods.  This reminded me of the daily market place in the park in Mendoza.

In some areas, items for sale were displayed n the ground.

After our brief tour of the city, we arrived at the Pullman Santiago El Bosque hotel and checked in.  We had a few minutes to get settled in our rooms and then the group had a final meeting to celebrate the tour with a Pisco Sour and to say Good-by to the friends we had made as this would be our last group gathering.  After the meeting broke up Susan and I had another of what had become our normal evening meal: a bottle of wine (from El Principal), some cheese and crackers and some carrots.

An interesting view for our evening meal

After our dinner, we wandered up to the top floor where there was a rooftop swimming pool and lounging area with a great view of the surrounding city.  I thought it appropriate to get a sunset photo on what was effectively the last night of our tour.

Sunset in Santiago

Sunday, January 26:  Santiago & Departure

Our flight back to Atlanta was scheduled for departure at 11:30 PM, so we had all day to do something in Santiago.  We extended our hotel reservation so that we had a room to go back to and relax all day, rather than living in the hotel lobby.  With a place of operations available for the day, we started looking around.  Breakfast in the hotel was fine, if a little confusing as to just where the veracious kinds of food were located, but we managed to eat more than enough to keep us going through the morning.

The daytime view out our hotel room window

We looked at some maps and determined that there was a river with some kind of greenway not far from the hotel, so we started walking in what we thought was the right direction.  We did make a couple of wrong turns and had to backtrack, but ended up at the “Park Balaceda” without major problems. The park is essentially a greenway along both banks of the Mapacho River, although calling it a “river” is a bit generous.  Like the Los Angeles River, it is more a very large concrete lined ditch with a little water flowing in the middle of it.  But, the greenway along the sides is much better than the Los Angeles river.  On our side of the river, there was a greenway with various walking paths, biking trails, and occasional unique parks of different types. There appeared to be about the same configuration on the other side of the river, although perhaps not as large or extensive.

When we got to the park area, we looked at the multi-lane street along the greenway and wondered: “Where are all the cars?”  A big beautiful street, but no cars!  As best we could figure out, there was some kind of biking event going on this Sunday morning.  Not a race or anything serious like that, just a relaxed ride along a large street with no cars.  I have since done some research and cannot find any special biking event that day.  (Well, there was the start of a multi-day race across the Andes, but I’m pretty sure that is not what we were seeing.)  Perhaps this is a weekly or monthly regular event.

The multi-lane street was empty except for the bikes.

We followed the walking trails for quite a while, checking out the various monuments or special use parks.  It was an easy walk on nice trails with the only issue being the need to keep an eye out for the bikers who decided to leave the street for the bike/walking trails.  There were an number of shrines of decorations, such as the Pagoda Dabotap. 

The Pagoda Dabotap

Of course, all of the inscriptions or other information about the various structures were in Spanish, and beyond our meager Spanish language ability, so they reminded a mystery.  For example, I have no idea what the columns below were supposed to siginfy.

This row of columns had some significance

There were more and more bikers appearing, there were some water stops being set up, and a couple of bike shops set up what looked like bike repair and adjustment tents alongside the street.  This would certainly be a great place to take a bike ride on a Sunday morning.  Very few bikers were in a hurry and they were just enjoying a nice Sunday morning ride.  Most of them even obeyed the traffic signals, such as stop lights, although there was practically no car traffic.

These bikers stopped for the red light.

We walked a couple of miles alongside the river, turned around, and then walked back close to our starting point.  From looking at the map, I knew there was a very large shopping mall (“the Mall Constanera Center”) next to the greenway and on the way back to our hotel, so we had to check it out.  It was huge, probably 4 or 5 floors high, and full of mostly top-end stores.  We managed to find our way through it without getting lost in any stores and noticed that there was a very strong security presence, with lots of well-armed police.  I don’t know if this is normal or perhaps a side effect of the biking event.

Back at the hotel we met up with some of the other people from the tour who were on our 11:30 PM flight and offered to store their luggage in our room for the day.  One couple ( Carolyn and Kevin) took us up on the offer and a little later the four of us ventured out to find some lunch to hold us over until that evening.  We had a nice walk and decent lunch at a local restaurant and we then separated with Kevin setting out on the mission to arrange transfers for the 7 of us who would be heading to the airport.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, reading, and talking to our friends.  At about 8:00 PM the two taxi-van’s arrived, we loaded up, and made the 20 minute trip to the airport.  As is typical, the procedures for getting checked in were not obvious, but we made it through that, passport control, and security screening in about an hour.  The young woman at the check-in desk suggested we go to the LATAM lounge, because it is nicer than the Sky Team lounge and our tickets and Delta Medallion levels would get us into either one.  I don’t know about the Sky Team lounge, but the LATAM lounge was very nice: we enjoyed some wine and enough food to get us home if the food on the flight was not very good.  The flight was on time and reasonably comfortable for being in Comfort+ seats but we were glad that we had enough to eat in the lounge as the food was less than wonderful.

And thus ended our Wine Tour of Argentina and Chile.

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