Wine District in Chile (Rancagua)

April 22nd - 24th 2008

Although it seems quite inaccessible to get into the wineries without booking well in advance, I managed to arrange with an office in Santiago to visit Vina Grax at 11:30 AM in Rancagua about 1.5 hours outside Santiago. This is in the Cochalagua Valley, one of the finest wine producing areas of Chile and South America.

Of course, when I arrived nobody on site had heard of anything about my "tour", so something must have been lost in translation (the lady could only speak Spanish and I communicate at a very basic level but she kept repeating "once y media").

Nonetheless, the guard at the gate helped me find someone who spoke some English. It happened to be Rodrigo, the graphic designer for the company who had a passion for motocross (dirt biking). Needless to say, we had enough to talk about and while we waited 1 hour for the pregnant tour host Isabel to show up, we cracked a Superior Reserve bottle of wine and chatted in the Wine Store.

Rodrigo went back to work and Isabel took over. She explained how importing and exporting worked, took me for a private tour of the winery, literally walked me through the live wining process from picked grape to bottling and labelling (I really lucked out showing up right in the middle of harvesting), and the she drove me to another nearby winery called Araxia where Tatiana was waiting to show me around her winery.

Araxia was clearly set up for tours with an organic mini-vineyard showcasing all varieties available for tour-guests and business men who can walk through and touch, pick, smell, and taste every type of grape. The grapes almost look identical to one another but their respective leaves are quite different to the next. To my surprise the white grapes are harvested much earlier than the reds (their skins are not as thick and they mature faster) so some of the grapes were becoming raison-like.

I was then showed around this winery as the workers were cleaning all the machines but easily transferred the images of my previous tour.

I realized that the Vinas in Chile really take their business serious as about 97% of their wines are exported. Roughly speaking only 20% of Chiles young adults (20 to 30 year-old) drink wine (whereas in Argentina this number is inversed). The foreign money has allowed the Chilean wine industry to boom over the last 10 to 15 years. Slowly but surely each winery keeps on buying more adjacent land and only now are all wineries racing to start growing their grapes up the mountain slopes of the vast valleys.

For the wineries I visited, they would have like me to book my visit well in advance so that the Eologist (Winemaker) could sit me in the fancy designated room with all the different wines and go through a tasting session. This is what the serious importers do anyways.....

Feeling accomplished and with a new plan to take an overnight bus out to the infamous Lakes District of southern Chile\Argentina, I returned to my hotel in Rancagua to check out. I had 4 hours before my bus and one last wine-appointment to fit in.

I met the owner of The Casanova Cafe Haiti last night who moved back to Chile 6 months ago to be with her mother. Lucky for me, she was hosting a private wine-tasting class with the Eologist\Semmolier from a newer local winery.

Antonio's Vina San X mainly offers white wines but does do a reserve grade Cabernet Sauvignon. The session involved smelling, food-pairing, color analysis, and finally tasting the wine to gain an appreciation of the wine makers intentions. Antonio has a passion for teaching people how to appreciate wine more than he does for making wine. After sharing a few excited ideas, we parted our ways with the intentions of doing business together. Antonio really wanted me to come back to his vineyard for the weekend to show me around but I had to take a rain check ( I promise to come back, it's just that I only have 80 days left to see everything I want to).

To the bus station I go (for a 16 hour ride).