Chilean Winery Adventures

Valle de Maipo

You know driving around a city is tough when the GPS doesn’t even know where the hell you are! Trying to find the famous Chilean wine region, The Maipo Valley, was an immense pain in the backside, thanks to our GPS which told us we weren’t driving on a road, whilst driving on the biggest road out of Santiago.

South Americans don’t understand the concept of wine tasting as we do (Hunter Valley experience only). First of all, you need to book ahead if you want to organize a tasting, forget about popping into a winery on a whim! Secondly, all tasting come as a package deal with a tour of the vineyard. Honestly, who cares about your big stainless steel tanks, and your medium toast French oak barrels, just give us some free wine and let us go on our MERRY way!! Which brings me to the third point, you need to PAY for the privilege of having a salesman sell you on how good their wines are. Maybe, unlike Australians, South Americans are unlikely to get smashed on a wine tasting and promptly order 3 cases (at inflated prices) to be sent to their house for additional cartage.

And so we headed out to Concha y Torre, the biggest vineyard in Chile, on Easter Sunday, without a booking and having no idea where the hell we were going! We opted to sit in their restaurant as opposed to taking a full tour, and proceeded to “taste” 6 full glasses of wine (between 3, not each – I was driving). The white wines in Chile are better than their Argentine counterparts. Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Torrontes were tasted and very much appreciated! We also tried the Carmenere grape (red) which is indigenous to Chile.

The second vineyard we tried to visit was closed, so we drove around the weird outer suburbs of Santiago, which were a cross between country town and slum. We stumbled upon the Artesenal market and had another great ceviche and a seafood empanada. We met some Aussies from Epping, who were living and working in Sao Paulo with their 3 kids. They were very interesting as they had been all round South America and gave us a few tips.

Gaucho on horse, back streets of Santiago

Casablanca

We also visited the Casablanca wine region, between Santiago and the Pacific Coast, on route to Valparaiso. It was a perfect day – sunny and warm – and we had a BEAUTIFUL lunch on a deck of House of Morande overlooking the vines. 5 courses each and 5 wines to match. We ate squid, fish and clam cerviche on big spoons, squid ink risotto with shellfish, beef carpaccio and crème caramel. Very sure there was another course that I cannot recall.

Afterwards we walked amongst the vines and played on a conveniently placed seesaw. 

5 spoon cerviche

Osso buco