First, we gave you a definitive guide to wine tasting in South Africa. Up next: our equally definitive* guide to wine tasting in
Chile, or at least the Maipo and Colchagua Valleys.
*By definitive,
we mean our guide to vineyards we visited and wines that we happen to like,
from the Maipo and Colchagua Valleys. We
have yet to explore several of Chile’s other key wine producing regions, such
as the Casablanca and Aconcagua valleys.
Giorgio’s unexpected business trip to Santiago in October provided us with the perfect opportunity to explore some
of the country’s wine regions. (Once
we arrived in Chile, we also realized it would have been a perfect opportunity
for some spring skiing.) Armed
with a Wine Spectator guide to Chilean wines and a rental car, we set off to
explore the Maipo and Colchagua valleys.
Santa Rita: Santa Rita is located in the Maipo
Valley, essentially a suburb of Santiago. You can even get there via subway! However, Santa Rita was just a stop on
our way farther south to the Colchagua Valley, so we navigated the capital
city’s highway system in our rental car, arriving at the vineyard just
30 – 45 minutes outside of the financial district.
If you go to Santa Rita, whatever you do, don’t book the premium tour… book the ultra premium tour! They will open hundreds of dollars of
excellent wine for you. (Also, if a large party shows up on the terrace
where you are finishing all of that wine, do what we did and pretend you’re on the guest list -- you’ll get free empanadas and choripanes to accompany the wine.)
We also enjoyed a private horse drawn carriage ride through the vineyards to
see the site of the rediscovery of carmenere (Chile’s flagship varietal)
and the “humilde
casa” of the vineyard’s original owner. (In case it isn’t
clear, the house is anything but humble and is now a beautiful boutique hotel
set amidst meticulously landscaped grounds.)
Santa Rita is actually a
conglomerate of producers, including a few from over the Andes in Mendoza, and
they produce a wide range of wines for all tastes and budgets. The
high-end cabernets that we tasted would definitely be worth saving for several
years and the flagship carmenere was exceptional.
Neyen: We booked a tour and vertical
tasting at Neyen, a boutique vineyard at the very end of the road in the Apalta
portion of the Colchagua Valley. When
we arrived on Saturday morning, it appeared to be deserted. However, after poking our nose into
various buildings, we came across our guide for the morning, who gave us a
private tour of the beautiful vineyards followed by a highly informative
tasting. Our tasting of three different vintages of the vineyard's
Espíritu de Apalta (a blend of cabernet and carmenere, as well as essentially the
only wine produced at Neyen) convinced us to buy
a bottle.
Viu Manent: According to our
ever-handy Wine Spectator, Viu Manent produces various highly-rated wines. However, it turns out that they don’t
let you taste any of them, not even for an extra fee. Overall, the tasting felt extremely
corporate, and the wines on offer were anything by great. We did enjoy our outdoor lunch with a
view of the vineyard’s own equestrian ring, though.
Montes: We
were very excited for our tour of Montes, which produces a wide range of wines. We used to buy their table wine at our
local liquor store in the Lower East Side for just $10 and we had celebrated
the first anniversary of Giorgio’s 30th birthday with their flagship wine, the
Montes M, all the way in Thailand.
However, they had seemingly lost our
reservation for the “icon” tour and tasting, leaving us to try their lower-end
wines with a large group of visitors from Peru and Brazil. The wine was good, but it was all wine
we had had before and were hoping to taste their more obscure or higher end
bottles. Our guide
eventually set up a private tasting of two of the vineyard’s “icon” wines (the
Montes M and Montes Folly, both highly recommended), but did not seem happy
about staying late just for us.
Clos Apalta: Our Sunday
afternoon tour at Clos Apalta, part of the French-owned Casa Lapostolle, was
perhaps the most professionally run of all of our vineyard visits in Chile. We toured the winery where their
highest end wine – Clos Apalta – is made. Overall, the visit was very pleasant,
the views gorgeous, the tour very informative, and the details about how
meticulous they are crafting their flagship wine plentiful.
After a tasting conducted in the
dimly lit barrel room (and with an envy-inspiring view of the owners’ private
wine cellar), we were treated to a multi-course lunch at the vineyard’s
restaurant, complete with a view of the verdant vineyards and snow-capped peaks
of the Andes in the distance. (If you want to have lunch at Clos Apalta, make
sure to book well in advance – everyone else on our tour had tried to book
lunch and had been unsuccessful in securing one of the restaurant's four tables. It seems that no one else plans as far
in advance as Stephanie.)
Concha y Toro: Concha y Toro is Chile’s
largest vineyard and a publicly traded company listed both on the Bolsa de Comercio de
Santiago and the New York
Stock Exchange. We were worried
we would miss the bodega’s turn off since we were coming from the opposite
direction, but we shouldn’t have been concerned. We just needed to follow the stream of
tour buses full of Brazilian, Japanese, and Peruvian tourists.
Thankfully, we did not join the
hordes since we had opted out of one of the standard tours -- we had plenty of
Concha y Toro in our wine fridge back in Lima. Instead, we pulled up a chair at one
of the wine bar’s outdoor tables to order a vertical tasting of the vineyard’s
flagship wine, Don Melchor, as well as their joint venture with Baron Philippe
de Rothschild, Almaviva. As expected, both of these wines were excellent,
but if you have the chance to try them without going to Concha y Toro
headquarters, you're probably not missing out.
If you're interested in planning
you're own visit to Chilean wine country, below are a few suggestions.
Where to Buy Wine: Anywhere other
than Chile! So much Chilean
wine is exported (upwards of 95%), that it’s quite scarce in its country of
origin. Wine turns out to
be more expensive in Chile than elsewhere after it is exported!
Where to Stay (Colchagua): If you can afford it, we recommend the Lapostolle Residence. However, if it’s out of your budget
(like it was outside of ours), the Noi Blend where we
stayed was pretty nice. We
aren’t sure if they speak much English, but they do have a hot tub in an old
wine barrel.
Where to Eat: We really have no idea – the food in Chile is just not very good.
Cheers!
¡Salud!
#stephandgio
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