Santiago Day 4

I forgot to mention yesterday that people put sawdust down on the entryway to stores and restaurants to keep people from slipping on the rain. A lot of the floors are tiles and stone and quite slippery! It's always funny how people in other countries do things.

We scheduled a wine tour for today and were ready downstairs at 8:10 as scheduled. They ran around 20 minutes late, enough time to make me sweat it as I read the paperwork last night (of course!) and read I was supposed to reconfirm 24 hours in advance. Thankfully they did come. J

We met up at a large mall and there were several busses for their different tours. We got on a shuttle van for Maipo region and headed off. Our guide was named Daniel. He was born in Chile but grew up in Denver, and moved back a few years ago as his mother was ill. His English and Spanish were both very good.

Santa Rita is one of the most important vineyards, producing 78 million liters of wine a year. Underraga produces 100M and Concho Y Toro 300M liters (Chile, California and Argentina- Mendoza).

Just under 1.3 billion liters of wine are produced in Chile, and most are exported (70-75%). Chileans only drink around 13 litres per year on average. They drink more pisco (30-45% alcohol) and love piscola drinks (pisco mixed with cola.) In the 1800s there was a German and Croatian immigration which brought beer to the region, and now beer and piscos are the main drinks in Chile.

Cabernet is the #1 wine produced. Mendoza was nominated as a ‘great wine capital of the world’ and Cassablanca, the region between Valparaisso (coast) and Santiago was also bestowed with this honor. They produce more white wines (sauvignon blank and chardonnay), and Maipo more reds. Overal Chile produces more red than white, and 70% of the production is red.) Carmenere, from France, is another famous wine from this region, and it’s exported to over 130 countries. Most of the wine is produced by French grapes brought over by the Spaniards.

The Incas controlled Columbia through South Chile until the 1500s. in 1536 the first Spanish expedition entered Chile, but they were not prepared for the altitude and many died on the way. Chile is 4,000 meters above sea level.

There are 2,000 volcanoes in Chile, and 60 are active. The last eruption was on 4/22/15 in south Chile.

Top exports are copper (50-55% of income), wood and salmon.

We are visiting in the winter so the vines are all dormant and have no green, but the vineyards look like those I’ve seen in the states, flocked by the shadow of the Andes in the far background. Santa Rita has a large colonial-style hacienda that is a rust brown with white trim and pillars. It’s very foggy today and cold!

We learned the irrigation is drop-to drop with a long pole with holes, created in Israel. The vines get two hours of water every other day in season. January brings the blooms, march through June the harvest; and June is late harvest grapes (sweet dessert wines.)

The oak barrels used to store and age the wine comes from the US and France. Local oak doesn’t work because the wine becomes too oxygenated. The French are the best and most expensive and used for the higher value wines. Oak barrels can be used up to five times. The best wines get the first use of the barrels and are stored 18+ months.

Our guide at the winery was Victor. The owner and founder was a woman named Mrs. Paula. In 1780 the land was a hacienda and in 1790 the house was built. She was a patriot from a wealthy family and aided the fight for independence by housing 120 soldiers, hidden in the basement. She nursed them and allowed them rest, then they went back to fight the Spanish for independence. There is a wine called 120 to pay homage.

In 1880 the hacienda became a vineyard. They produce petite syrah, syrah carmenere, cabernet frank, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blank and chardonnay. Located in the valle del Maipo (valley of Maipo) near the Andes. The location is rainy in the winter and summers are hot and dry. Reds are best produced here. The vineyard has 1200 hectares of land.

The vineyard believes the 30-90-year old vines are the best for producing quality wine as the roots are deep and absorb nutrients. The wine is a more concentrated and a better flavor. At the end of each row of vines is a rosebush. The purpose is to draw any insects and impurities—rose bushes are fragile so they will tell the state of the vines and alert to any issues.

Young wines take 6-8 months to produce and are not aged in barrels. Reserva is aged in American oak barrels for around 8 months and Gran Reserva in French oak barrels for a year or more. Prima also uses French oak but brand new barrels and is aged 18-24 months. 225 litres are in a barrel. Santa Rita only uses barrels three times then sells to pisco, chichi or other distilled liquor makers.

Nitrogen is added to protect the wine from oxygen, and we got to watch this process. The wine cellar was made in 1880 of brick with mortar of limestone, sand and egg whites. In 2010, the earthquake caused damage to the cellar and two of the large pillars had to be replaced with concrete. They also lost around 20% of the wine production.

The grounds were beautiful as was the hacienda. There is also a museo Andino (Andes museum) on the grounds that we toured, including pre-columbian artifacts and items from all of Chile including Easter Island.

The wines overall were good. The first, a white, was not, but the reds were both good. I bought a bottle of Reserva Syrah.

We stopped at a restaurant for lunch. Kim got lomo soltado, her new favorite, and I got a ‘special dish’ called plateada al jugo. It was like beef brisket but it was cold. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be but assumed so. Hmmm.. it was ok but not what I expected. The salad I got ended up being cut up tomatoes, canned green beans (this is the second time green beans were canned, so apparently that’s the thing here) and avocado, with no dressing.

We then drove to the last vineyard, Conca y Toro. The house was built in 1875 as a summer home for the founder Mejor Concha y Toro. He was a politician and business man. There are 22 rooms and 4600 square meters in the light yellow house, which is now office space. There are 23 hectares of garden with many kinds of trees, a pond, some chickens, a sheep and a few other animals freely roaming.

This vineyard grows 26 types of grapes, 13 red and 13 white. This is the largest winery in the world and includes Chile, Mendoza Argentina and California. They produce over 300M litres of wine and are the 4^th largest producer in the world. They have an old cellar and a modern cellar. The old cellar looks similar to the one at Santa Rita, with brick held by mortar of limestone, sand and egg whites. Castillero del Diablo is stored here. The cellar was built around 1850 and the best wines are stored here. It is named that for security—people were stealing so they started a story that the devil had been seen here, and people were too scared to go there!!

The white sauv blank was ok here but the two reds were not good at all, in my opinion. I dumped them after a sip or two, if that tells you anything. Shocking! Lol.

We drove back and dropped off people in Santiago then were dropped a block from our place. We went to the store to grab a few things for dinner instead of going out again, as we had a large lunch. That stuff included two local pastries: pastel manjar pruve (not sure what this is. It's layered with very thin layers of cake and caramel with maybe 12 layers. Very good and sweet!) and pastel mil hojas ('thousand leaves delicacy cake.') http://www.enmicocinahoy.cl/2012/03/mil-hojas-manjar-huevo-mol/ It's interesting.. layers, but not like phyllo dough, and fairly dry but sweetened with caramel.

We decided to do some laundry as tomorrow may be a long day, and since we have to leave by 7 to get to the airport on Thursday, this way we’re not rushed. Exciting stuff. Since we’re in a high-rise tower, we sat in the laundry room waiting for our laundry to finish. I so appreciate my washer and dryer in my house!!