Day 55 - Santiago, Chile

Big day today. We are heading to the outskirts of the city to the Maipo Valley for some more wine tasting which has fast become my favourite thing to do! 

As before we decide to go it alone as opposed to the US$200 per person tour and once again it turns out to be the right decision although we only get two visits as opposed to three on a tour. 

Our first stop on the tour is the world famous Concha Y Toro (which I must admit I didn't know was so famous until we got there). Casillero del Diablo (the Cabernet Sauvignon) is the red wine that we occasionally drink at home and can be found everywhere in England. Not surprising as Concha is a huge exporter of wine, the second biggest Vineyard and exporter in the world behind one in Australia. 

We get the Metro to the end of the line at plaza de Puente Alta on line 4 and then jump in a cab for a 10m journey which costs about £3. We arrive at Concha Y Toro and start the tour. It's a beautiful place and as usual set in fantastic scenery (although nowhere near as spectacular as Waiheke in NZ). Our tour guide is great. 

We start off visiting the manor house, park and the grapes variety garden where there are 25 different types of wine including the unique to Chile Carmenere grape (due to a disease wiping it out world wide but it survived in Chile due to the local conditions). Unfortunately we couldn't taste all the different varieties of grapes growing as it is too early in the season. They are harvested in early March so wouldn't taste any different at the moment. 

We taste three wines on the tour. A lovely Sauvignon Blanc called Trio which is so refreshing on hot day. We are then taken by our great tour guide to the ageing cellar to get stuck into some of the reds. Yum! The cellars are huge with a heck of a lot of wine down there, especially as every one of their French barrels can hold a whopping 300 bottles of wine. 

My kind of wine tour...

We get into the Casillero del Diablo cellar and the guide then retreats, closing the door behind her leaving us in the pitch black. We are then 'treated' to a short show telling the story of how it became known as Cassillero del Diablo which literally means 'devils cellar'. To cut a long story short, to stop people nicking his fine reserve wine the owner, Don Melchor, made up a story that the devil lived there. Very gullible people in the olden days me thinks!

The film projected onto the wall of the owners concocting their ridiculous plan...

The devil guarding the good stuff. 

After the cellar treat we taste two reds; the special reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and the native Carmenere. They are nice but we don't love them as much as the New Zealand ones we tried. Probably due to a sort of 'mass produced' cognitive effect! Randomly they give us two souvenir wine glasses!!! NOT MORE DAMN GLASSES! We decide to leave them there. Can't start collecting vineyard wine glasses too even though this probably is the Hard Rock of vineyards! 

We had heard that the tour is a little commercial before we arrived due to being so big and mass market focused but it is lovely. There is an element of this mainly in the 'Disney landesque' devil show in the Diablo cellar and the fact that you can buy a Manchester United shirt in the shop (they are their official wine sponsor which I must admit is fantastic brand fit with the Red Devils) but it is still a lovely place and well worth the visit. 

We sit outside in a gorgeous courtyard (but no great views this time) for another couple of glasses of wine and the customary cheese board. If I don't go home with gout I am going to be disappointed!!!! ;-)  I have the Marques de Casa Concha Merlot and a glass of the same wine but the Cabernet Sauvignon version. Nat has the Merlot too and then a desert wine called the Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc.  Such great value too. In all with the tour, two glasses of wine each and huge cheese board we only spent £30!

Next up we need to make it back north to the Aquitina Vineyard. We are now going to the opposite end of the spectrum to a boutique vineyard specialising in high end reds. We have a few issues getting there when we get off the Metro at Quillayes as opposed to Quillin which unfortunately is about seven stops too early. Add to that me getting the time wrong for our tour (it's 3pm not 3.30pm) and it turns into a mad dash. Luckily we we the only one on the tour (boutique tour) so being 15mins late didn't matter. Phew! 

This tour is amazing and can be described anything but commercial. They only produce about 100k bottles per year which is apparently really small. We start the tour on an observation point overlooking the whole vineyard. A gorgeous setting underneath the mountain. 

Apparently they have just had a huge order in for 1,200 cases (with six bottles per case) so they have had to hire a labelling machine instead of doing it by hand as they usually do. Here is it ready to be labelled. 

 

And the labelling machine. Pretty tedious work. 

Our lovely tour guide who is the niece of the owner should us know it is done manually.

The wine store

Gorgeous setting for our tasting post tour. Absolutely beautiful. 

We then head back to the hotel. It takes about an hour to get home. Nat chills in the room whilst I hit my spot on the roof. It's such a clear day today. This is the first time we have seen this mountain outside the of our hotel!

Amazing sunset tonight. 

We head to the gorgeous boutique hotel called the Aubrey this evening. A lovely hotel. We sit in the courtyard of the piano bar with a wonderful pianist playing. 

Cool street art that is everywhere in Santiago. 

Tonight is absolutely heaving around Bellavista. It's such a cool neighbourhood. Is been busy all week but tonight it's gone up a couple of gears. 

Just a random seven piece band that play for ages on the street corner. 

We eat at the lovely La Percanta. Despite the difficulties in ordering off a Spanish menu with no one that speaks English I manage to point to a picture of a cow and get this... Result!!

After dinner we walk around the corner to Pio Nono aka bar street which is buzzing. It's like Shoreditch with bars seeming to open out of everywhere. They just lift the shutters and suddenly there is a cool bar there that we would have just walked past earlier. We go for one in Harvard which had a real festival vibe. Loving Bellavista. We are definitely staying in the best area in town. 

More street art on the way home. We get in at just gone midnight and it is now officially my birthday :-)