We spent our last week in South America in the wine valleys of Chile in the towns of Placilla and Alto Jahuel. Our decision to again avoid the big city (this time, Santiago) put us out in the country, walking distance from tons of wineries, with beautiful views all around. The two AirBnb homes we stayed in were welcoming beyond belief. The “southern hospitality” in South America greeted us as family, sharing laughs, stories, and feeding us beyond the descriptions in their AirBnb ads. We had so many delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, which was a fortunate accident – we happened to end up in the region at the time when everything was ripening – including the grapes!
The first house we stayed at was in Placilla, a small town next to the larger city of Santa Cruz. Our hostess, Cecilia, a native Chilean, is married to a Swiss man and together they own Suiza Restaurant (Swiss Restaurant) that is connected to their house, right on the town square. Her husband and children were out of town, but her mother and sister were visiting, which also brought her brother, who lived down the street, over to visit quite often too. Her brother owns a vineyard in town that has a contract with China. Last Monday they picked and loaded up the grapes to be put on a ship that will make a 40 day journey to China, where the grapes will be sold. Looking ahead, those grapes will arrive in China about the same time we will, but we will be doing a lot more in these 40 days than merely sitting on a boat!
While Cecilia’s brother’s grapes still had a little ripening to do after being harvested, there were plenty of vineyards in the area with vine ready grapes. At the farmers market we bought a kilo (2.2 pounds) of grapes for 600 Chilean pesos ($1 USD). Y’all, they were so delicious!
Another welcoming member of the family is pictured below. We’ve found that we usually build relationships with the pets faster than people 😂. Really, it makes sense. Once a pet decides you are trustworthy they dive full in – as people we nearly always hold some kind of reservation or politeness. It’s some of what’s so endearing about animals – they just go for what they want (which is usually full attention 🙂 )!
When we arrived Cecilia pointed at this particular dog and said “He LOVES to play.” This was no joke. He was incredibly patient, but every time we walked out of the restaurant to our room, our opened our room into the courtyard, there he was with sad eyes and either a soccer ball or an orange, begging for a playmate. He loved playing with the oranges – anytime one fell from the tree in the courtyard he would run to grab it and bring it for you to throw 😂. When they would burst, he’d feast on the juice!
This picture was taken from our doorstep. Early one morning, we opened the door to greet the day, and found him, head on the step with an orange in his mouth. He raised his head, opened his mouth, and the orange rolled into the room 😂. So pitiful :). We, of course, couldn’t resist, which ensured future morning greetings with soccer balls and oranges accordingly. He loved playing soccer and would even kick the ball around by himself like many of the kids in the area.
These are some very old grapevines in Cecilia’s courtyard. They form a beautiful canopy over the table where we often ate dinner. I never realized how many grape bunches one vine could produce. There were only seven vines here, but many, many grapes – red in the front and green in the back!
As a side note – you might be interested to know that Cecilia’s entire house opened to the courtyard. The bathroom, all the bedrooms, living room and kitchen all opened to the outside, almost as if the courtyard were the main gathering spot. The only two rooms that were connected by an inner door were the living/dining room and kitchen. Well, and there might have been a separate bathroom in Cecilia’s room, but we didn’t go in there. It’s a pretty cool concept for a house in an area that needs very little heating or cooling throughout the year. Just walk out and enjoy the weather!
While many of our days were spent at vineyards, one day we hoped on a bus to Pichilemu, a nearby seaside town. It was colder than we expected, so we ended up not swimming, but it was fun to sit and watch locals brave the cold sea while we snacked. We bought a full stick of chocolate covered strawberries for $1.50, and, like the rest of the fruit we had, they were ripe and tasty!
That was the coldest ocean water I have ever felt!
There were tons of people! I was shocked at how long some of them stayed in the water!
Yep, that’s a llama
As you walked the shoreline to a different area of beach, you came to huge rocks and surfers. It’s hard to tell by the pictures, but the waves here were enormous! This was my first time to see surfers catch a wave larger than themselves and ride it out as it crested behind and around them. Pretty impressive!
Surfers in the background. I loved the green on these rocks 🙂
Most of the rest of our days we spent at vineyards in the Colchagua Valley. With our South America budget getting low we had to get creative in how we did our tastings, but thankfully the bottles here are cheaper than the tastings! Isn’t that crazy? We actually still have a few bottles with us here in New Zealand that we ran out of time to try before we flew out 😂.
The first vineyard we visited was Montes. We couldn’t afford the tour, but if we could, we would have been taken in a horse drawn carriage around the vineyard, then down to the cellars where they play Gregorian chants for the wine while it ages. They view the wine as a living thing – and what living thing doesn’t enjoy music?
The grapes and yeast must really enjoy music, because this was some of our favorite wine in this region, and good news, it’s available in the states!
The whole vineyard was beautiful!
Kirk got a panoramic pic before we left :).
The next vineyard we visited was Viu Manent. Getting to this vineyard was my very first experience in hitch hiking, and it was a good one! Though this winery is walking distance from the other (a couple of miles) we were running short on time before they closed and, having heard that hitch hiking is pretty common in Chile, we took a chance.
In the midday hot sun, walking in the direction we needed to go on a busy highway, we put our thumbs up and held our hopes high. Lots of people passed without a glance, but about five minutes in we watched as a small car pulled over 20 yards ahead of us. He happened to pull over right in front of a small store, so at first we didn’t think anything of it. As we took our slow steps, thumbs still up, we noticed that he never got out to go inside, and suddenly it dawned on us – he had stopped for us! Clearly we are new at this 😂. We took off running and hopped in upon arrival. It was a young guy, who was happy to lend us a hand. He drove us a couple of miles down the road, then pulled over and let us out near the gate. Easy and free.
Our luck continued as we enter the vineyard. We’d gotten there so late in the day that they were no longer offering tastings, but the wine shoppe had a few bottles open and the head cashier said we could try one. Our true luck was when the guy who did the “one” tasting ended up being from the States – born and raised in Waco, Texas (where, before moving to Tyler, I lived for 5 years :))! He let us try all 3 for free, one from each line :).
Viu Manent sees to be a pretty stand up place. Cecilia was telling us how involved in the community they are – hosting children’s event and such. You can’t see it in the above picture, but a little to right was a playground right in the middle of the vines. There were also children’s horseback riding lessons going on that we watched while we sat on the patio.
They are also working to bring wine to the younger Chilean generations. Wine is deep rooted in past generations of the Chilean community, but they say the new generation is turning away from wine for cocktails and Pisco (a liquor with a taste similar to rum, but it’s made from grapes). Viu Manent has a new line of wine out called Secreto aimed directly at the new generation. Each bottle is majority the grape listed on the label, with another secret grape added in – only the wine maker knows which one. This line ended up not being out favorite (we tend to prefer the wines that have had a little more time in barrels), but we liked some of their more traditional wines a lot.
Another day we went to Santa Cruz visited Laura Heartwig Vineyard. Their tastings were a reasonable price, so we got to try several of their wines. We liked all of them – especially a Family Edition wine that is a really balanced blend with an excellent aftertaste. I still didn’t like it as much at the Montes wines, but the table next to us went on and on about it! They were a pretty funny older couple who apparently met when she tripped and he caught her in a “dip” (ballroom dancing-like) pose 😂.
This vineyard must have horse drawn carriage tours also because one rode through while we were doing on tasting on the porch!
Also, while in Santa Cruz we visited a marketplace where I got stung by a bee! While walking he got caught between my leg and the tongue of my shoe and stung me right near my foot! I’m pretty sure this was my first bee sting (though I think I’ve been stung by a wasp as a child), but the good news is that I’m apparently not allergic!
The next Vineyard we visited was Las Ninas. They are a fully organic vineyard with reasonably priced tastings, and we liked them okay. Every wine we tried had a lighter taste, like something you’d enjoy chilled in summer by the pool – even their deep reds. It was different, but nice.
Las Ninas also had a wine made from Mourvedre grapes, which we had never heard of before. The Mourvèdre Rose seen above, definitely had the melon taste as noted!
On a side note, for the first time in my life wine is tasting like something other than “wine” 😂. I’ve finally had enough tastings side by side that I can pick out some of the tasting notes! I mean, I’m still not good at it all the time, but I feel very proud of the moment when I tried one of Viu Manent’s Carmenere’s and corrected identified “bell pepper” 🤗.
The last vineyard we visited outside Placilla was “Clos Apalta” where Lapostolle is made, and boy was it an experience.
I can easily identify Clos Apalta as the most pretentious vineyard we visited. On our budget Kirk and I often walked miles to reach vineyards. This one in particular we hitch hiked/walked to, and upon reaching the entrance we noticed the the gates were closed – this is very rare here. Vineyards, stores, and restaurants leave their doors open most of the time to show that they are open (and because they don’t need to have a/c running). Having the gate closed somewhat said “keep away”, but as we approached a guard came out and asked our agenda. We told him we wanted to do a tasting and his response was “Are you sure? The tasting room is up there (pointing to a mountain in the back of the vineyard).” He seemed genuinely concerned about us wanting to walk that far, but as we would soon discover, it seems as if they posted the tasting room so far back to discourage those without vehicles from coming.
Above – grapes we saw on our walk to the tasting room.
He opened the gates and we began our walk – down a long dirt road in the beaming sun with little shade and no sidewalks or areas for people to be separate from cars (clearly not made for walking clients). Four cars passed us during our walk, and while only one of them didn’t slow down or move over at all (so dangerous!), we received a dust cloud from all of them simply by sharing such a small road.
So, we walked over a mile and a half and entered the winery covered in sweat and dirt 😬🤷🏼♀️,
The building itself was beautiful. Above is a picture of the spiral staircase that descended into the cellars.
We asked someone about a tasting and found out that they only give tastings as a part of a tour package (not so uncommon in this area). We knew we couldn’t afford it, so we opted to just go to the wine shop in hopes of buying a bottle to sip on while we rested a little while. We bought one of their lower line bottles and splurged a little on their 2014 Lapostolle Cuvée Alexandre Cabernet Sauvignon because it was one of the highest rated affordable wines we’d seen (rated 95 points and just under $20 – though that was much more than we spent on any other bottle). As we purchased them we asked about a sitting area to drink it in and the clerk informed us that we were not allowed to sit and drink wine on the premises for the safety of the people renting rooms from them. Seeing the bizarre look on our faces due to the shock of hearing that we were perceived as a threat – she then informed us that if we needed to rest, we could stand outside and if anyone inquired as to why we were there we were to tell them that we just needed a little rest before our walk back and that we were about to leave. 🤨
So, we packed our wine in our backpack, filled up our water bottle with their nice water dispenser, and headed back down the drive, a little appalled and while also laughing hysterically. Apparently, if you are willing to walk miles to try wine you also have potential to be a hazard to people who can afford to sleep next to the vines 🤷🏼♀️😬😂.
Who knows, maybe they’d had something happen in the past that made them put those guidelines in place, but since we didn’t encounter anything like that anywhere else, it was certainly strange!
And if you are wondering, we did like the highly rated wine (especially after it had been open a day), but Montes was our favorite! However, in our opinion, Clos Apalta’s lower line didn’t compare to other equally valued wines we’d had.
We snapped this before leaving the gate – the road we walked with an arrow on the tiny house on the hill we walked to.
The rest of the vineyards we visited were during our one night stay in Alto Jahuel in the Maipo Valley. We didn’t snap any pictures, but the house we stayed in had a humongous beautifully decorated backyard with a pool, and the hosts we so hospitable! This was by far the best breakfast we had in South America – fresh fruits, eggs, croissants, toast, fresh smashed avocado spread, French press coffee (the first we’d seen in South America), tea, ham, and cheese. A great final breakfast for our time spent there!
On our final day in South America, the first Vineyard we visited was Perez Cruz. We arrived at the gate, not knowing we needed a reservation (or that we had gone to the wrong gate), but they called ahead and let us come anyway. As we began a half mile walk through the vineyard down a wide shaded road we began to hear squawking and knew parrots were nearby. As we approached different trees, large groups of them would fly out and above us. As they took off their tail feathers would spread and you could see their greens, yellows, and reds underneath. We passed hundreds of them, which was quite a treat, as they aren’t native to this area! Parrots and vines, a beautiful site!
This is the best picture I got of them, though the video on instagram gives you a taste of how loud they are!
The people at Perez Cruz were helpful and accommodating. We really enjoyed all the wines we tried there, and their best selling Cabernet Sauvignon can be bought for $12 in the States!
The last vineyard we did a tasting at was Concha Y Toro, which you’ve probably seen on shelves in the States.
Concha Y Toro are one of the biggest wine producers in the area (over 3,000 different types) and their facilities are enormous. We split a tasting, trying the first four wines, and then purchased a half glass of the last, one of their highest rated wines. The first four were okay (I liked Perez Cruz far more!), but the last was my favorite wine we had in South America (Kirk’s favorite was in Mendoza). However, though it was my favorite, the price tag knocks it off my list. It wasn’t $100 better than our other favorites, but that’s how much more per bottle it costs!
On our way back to the house we passed Vina Portal Del Alto and snagged a bottle of Carmenere for the road. We’ve opened it since we arrived in New Zealand and it delicious for the price, but doesn’t compare to some of our favorites.
Isn’t the house of their vineyard beautiful?
We are now in New Zealand where we spent most of our time so far in Wellington at a free music festival and a little farther north, hiking the Alpine Crossing. I’ll post about those soon!
The Yonderers 