Maipo Valley Wine tour

We headed back to Santiago on Wednesday and woke up early for a 10 hour wine tour of the Maipo Valley. I am not much of a day drinker, but this tour was really fabulous. We visited four vineyards from tiny to commercial production and our tour guide Benji did a great job of weaving in a history of the area, as well as a remarkable knowledge of wine-making given he was all of 20 years old. The Maipo Valley (just south of Santiago) is uniquely situated to have perfect micro areas for red vs whites and be isolated from many pesticides and fungus due to its narrow band bordered by the Andes on the east, the desert in the north, the Pacific on the west, and Antartica to the south. Chile maintains this with super strict border control wrt to ag products. Chile is known for very limited pesticides in their wines.

Carmenere is the hallmark Chilean red wine, although they also produce delicious Cabernets and other red blends. The Carmenere grape was thought for years to be extinct, having died out in Europe from a root fungus. In Chile, for many years, the Carmenere was mistaken to be a Chilean-grown Merlot grape until recent years when a viticulturalist visiting Chile questioned it and made the discovery that they were in fact the thought-to-be-lost Carmenere. Chile’s isolation had saved it from the European fungus. The taste is similar to a Bordeaux or Merlot. It is my new favorite wine :)

The tour went from 2 small vineyards who are building sustainable vineyards that include livestock (baby llamas!), complementary plants, and minimal irrigation. The 3rd winery was mainly a lunch stop at a farm that also made good olive oil. The final stop was a commercial producer, Undurraga.

There were about 10 others on the trip- all fun fellow travelers, a few on their way to Antartica! All in all a lovely day!Read more