For the love of wine in Santiago
Trip Start
Jan 14, 2008
1
16
22
Trip End
Mar 05, 2008
Santiago,
Chile
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
After finally getting our bags after a long time of watching cute customs dogs get trained near our baggage claim we encountered the bright early afternoon daylight upon exiting the customs area and saw a frenzy of Chileans waiting for family members and loved ones, mixed in with drivers waiting for their fare. We wondered what the person who would be picking us up looked like and all I can say is Andrew was quite pleased when we saw adorable Karen, brunette and blue eyed in a sundress holding a sign with our names on it. To Andrewīs great delight, she gave us both a Chilean welcome, a kiss on the cheek. Andrew smiled and said, "I think I will like it here." With that we were whisked away by Karen and our driver to be taken to our hotel in the Los Condes district of Santiago. With 16 Million people and Chile and 6 Million of them living in Santiago, we thought we would be in for an ugly polluted city. We were amazed that there was no traffic on the way to our hotel and everything looked modern and nice. It wasnīt as clean as New Zealand, but it was really quite nice.
Emiliana Alpaca's
Karen checked us into our hotel that was on a small street in one of the financial and residential districts in the city. We were escorted to a nice suite at the top of Plaza El Bosque where we would spend the next 2 and a half hours taking a nap before heading out to explore our neighborhood for a place to eat. We woke up around 5pm, fairly hungry, but knowing that South America eats late, we knew we had to wait. We scrolled through the 90 or so Spanish channels airing episodes of Alf, Bay watch and various popular movies from the US in Spanish and settled on CNN to catch up on some news. We emerged from our hotel around 7pm to check out our neighborhood that was filled with nice restaurants and settled on Tiramisu, a fantastic pizzeria that Karen had recommended. Being the early birds we were, the place was not open until 7:45pm, so we walked around a little more before finally being seated outside on the street where we enjoyed a couple great pizzaīs, local wines and local beer. We made our way back to the hotel after a very nice dinner to try to get ourselves acclimated to the 8 hour time difference.
I woke up around 4am, unable to sleep, as did Andrew because I was tossing and turning and we chatted a bit before finally heading down to breakfast at 7am. We were very pleased with the breakfast at the Hotel as it had great coffee and was different than the past 28 days. We were picked up from the hotel from our guide Maria and our driver Luis. Today we were visiting Emiliana, the only certified bio-dynamic winery in Chile specializing in organic wines, followed by a trip to Valparaiso and Viņa del Mar. It was Valentineīs Day and it seemed like the perfect day for a romantic trip outside of Santiago.
We drove about an hour and a half to Emiliana in the Casablanca Valley that was found in 1982. We were greeted by another Maria who explained all of the elements that go into making organic wine and how the Casablanca Valley is the sister Valley to Napa as it is on the same longitude as Napa and is excellent for growing white wines and a few reds that can sustain in cooler conditions. She introduced us to the Alpacaīs that act as a clean up crew after the harvest and let us pet niņa, a month and a half old Alpaca who posed for a picture. I could not believe how soft she was...
Nina
and so friggen cute.After a tour of the vineyards and the animals we went inside to try the wine. We learned about the various inexpensive wines that are made at Emiliana and really enjoyed them. We were told about their wine called Ge, a premium Syrah, Cab, Merlot and Carmeniere blend that is the only place in the world that makes it in a certified bio-dynamic state. The wine is based on the stars and the moon if you can believe it, where each day in the calendar year is dedicated to the roots, the vines of the fruits. It was fascinating. I should also note that it was the first time Andrew had tried Carmeniere, a specialty of Chile, as all of the vines in France were killed by disease and not other country specializes in it. It is quite a good wine.
After our wonderful visit to Emiliana, we were off to Valparaiso or Valpo as the locals call it. Maria explained to us that we would either love or hate Valparaiso. I had a feeling that we would love it. Upon our arrival in Valparaiso we learned that 250,000 people lived there and it was a major port town back in the 1800īs and had a TON of history, but now is mainly used for the Navy. There were 10 or so Hillevatorīs or ascensorīs that would take people to their colorful homes and neighborhoods clinging to the steep hillsides and many parts of it are declared historic sites by UNESCO. Aside from the graffiti, the city was beautiful, full of vibrant colors, cobble stone roads, art mosaics on the sides of buildings by famous artists, steep hills and beautiful views of the Ocean below. We had a full tour of the city with itīs beautiful views and Maria took us on a steep Ascensor and at the top we walked back down through the tiny streets and colorful houses to where Louis was waiting to take us to lunch.
We had decided to go to Apollo 77, a small restaurant way up on the hillside with great views and a little bit of a crazy menu. We decided to have lunch the Chilean way as it was Valentineīs day and we needed to enjoy our meal. We ordered a bottle of Sav Blanc and ordered scallops, and the local fish with strawberry torte for desert followed by espresso. It took us two hours to get through our lunch, which may be the longest lunch we had ever had. It was wonderful. We met Maria and Luis after lunch and headed to Viņa del Mar, a beautiful coastal town that neighbors Valpo.
At Emiliana
It was 10 minutes away from Valpo, but very different... much more modern, a crowded beach, a little like Miami if you ask me. It was fashion week there and they were setting up the runways near the ocean. I think Andrew wanted to stay. We saw a Rapa Nui there, that is one of the rare oneīs outside of Easter Island. Maria explained that This is where many people from Argentina as well as Santiago residents spend their vacations during the summer. I was wondering why Santiago seemed so empty and there was my answer... it was summer vacation and the city was empty. According to Maria, it was the best time to be in Santiago.We arrived back at the Hotel around 6pm and cleaned up for our special Valentineīs Dinner at a restaurant called Nolita. Karen had made reservations for us at 8:30pm, early for dinner according to people in Santiago, but we were starving. We got dressed up and slowly walked to dinner. Nolita was adorable. Very modern, very hip and it had a GREAT menu. We had a couple pisco saurīs, ordered a Carmaniere, fabulous Calamari, shrimp and Chicken Parm. It was about the time that we finished our main courses that the place started to fill up. It was 10:15pm and people were starting to come in. By the time we left around 10:45pm the place was almost full. There were a few spots left for those who had the 11pm reservations.
Again I was up at 4am... this time I went back to sleep and when I woke up at 7:15am, Andrew was gone. Poor guy. To my delight, he had gone to Starbuckīs which by the way, he had to wait to have open at 7:30am. Where were we that Starbuckīs did not open until 7:30am on a weekday. At any rate, we had our coffee, another great breakfast and were met by Louis and Karen in the lobby at 9am. Today we were going to tour through the Acancogua Valley where there are 4 large wineries that date back to the 1800īs.
Karen explained to us that the Acancogua Valley is famous for its redīs as the climate is quite hot. Our first visit was to Vina Errazuriz that was founded in 1870. It is owned by a very famous Chilean family and the current president of the estate is a 6th generation Chilean wine maker. We were met by Pedro who spoke perfect English and took us on a tour of the vineyards and showed us the difference between the California vines, the French vines, Italian vines, and the differences between the hillside and valley vineyards. We walked up to the top of one of the hills and took in the beauty of the vast vineyards. It was such a special wine tour. In the states we usually walk into a winery and taste the wines and walk out and go on to the next. Here on the other hand, the wine tours are so informative. They take about an hour and a half and you learn so much about the estate. We tasted about four delicious wines and fell in love with the Max Reserve Shiraz which we bought a bottle of to bring with us to Patagonia.
Karen then took us to a small town called San Martin de Los Andes where we went to In Situ, which has ancient Inca rock drawings in the middle of one of its hillside vineyards. The views of the huge snow capped Andes Mountain range beyond the vineyards was quite a site. The Acancogua River, that comes from the 21,000 foot Acancogua Mountain ran right along the vineyards at In Situ and it was quite a site.
After our tour of In Situ, we made our way to lunch at a large historic home that has become a fabulous 8-room hotel in town that attracts tourists coming to the area to ski during the winter. I will have to look up the name as it was a beautiful home. We had the place all to ourselves and we were seated under a varanda by the pool next to the vineyards. It was a fabulous place to have lunch. We were joined by Karen and Louis and we enjoyed a wonderful avocado salad, fish and steak and a fabulous sweet papaya salad with our merlot from In Situ. It was truly a very special way to have lunch. It was right there, under that Veranda that I decided that maybe Chile was better than New Zealand...
We returned back to Santiago after lunch where I picked up a converter with karenīs help (yes I managed to blow mine up using my blow dryer, terrible luck if you ask me). We were back at our hotel around 6pm, where we relaxed and still full from lunch reluctantly decided to order room service as we were exhausted. It had been two and a half wonderful days in Santiago. Next stop Patagonia!! .
Emiliana
