Thursday, December 17, 2009

Day 62-63: Santiago, Chile

Today we organized a wine tour of Cousiño Macul Winery on the outskirts of Santiago. According to the websites directions, we had to take two different lines then walk 30 minutes east. Who do you know carries a compass on them every day? We walked 10 minues then asked someone for directions. The lady told us that we needed to continue on in the same direction a bit further. 20 minutes later we asked another woman and she said we were right next to it, so of course we thought, "Wonderful, we are hot and tired." We walked around the block and didn´t see a sign or even one grape, so we asked another person who said we were really really far away and pointed in the other direction.

That is when we came to realization #3: Chileans can NOT give sufficient directions.


So we took a taxi to the winery and in the end it was worth all the hassle. As we walked into the winery, we passed horses and vineyards and beyond that we could see the snow-topped Andies Mountains. At reception we recieved a Cousiño Macul wine glass and met our tour guide. He brought us into the old fermentaion tank room first. The room was filled with massive oak barrels that they once used for the first step after crushing the grapes, fermentation. The room still smelt of wine. Then we stepped into the rooms with the metal casks where they make their premium $100 bottle of wine today. Unfortunately it was after their harvest, so we couldn´t see the process of making wine. The next stop was the old bottling room, where they kept all their original equipment. They still had all the old stencils for exporting cases of wine all over the world, including the US. The coolest part was walk into the candle lit cellar, which looked like an old movie. The first thing we could feel was the cold draft from the Andies, which was such a difference from the Santiago summer air. The wine cellar had hundreds of oak barrels filling the room; however they were all empty. The company doesn´t hold their wine in Santiago because of the pollution. In the back of the cellar there was a room that held the families collection of wine dating back to the 1800´s. I believe most of it is vinegar now, really good vinegar.

After the tour we tasted two wines: a pinot noir rose and a cabernet savignon. The rose was really refreshing and we enjoyed learning the process of how a rose is made by leaving the skin of the red grapes in the juice for 20 minutes or so. We finished our wine while chatting to the other two Americans in our group. They seemed to know their wine and that is when Allison and I made it our mission to learn about and taste all the wines we could in South America. That night we made some comfort food (mac and cheese) and watched a movie.

The next day we really explored the city. First we checked out Pablo Neruda´s house, a famous Chilean author. The graffiti was amazing around the house and the neighborhood. All of it is tasteful art and some are political. We continued on through the historic district and walked around the Plaza de Armas. There is a Plaza de Armas in every city, but this one was quite the hotspot. There were art vendors all over the place and people singing and dancin. The children were even playing in the fountain in their undies. I don´t think they would appreciate it if we joined, so we just watched. The icing on the cake was a man pushing a barrel painted in all gold. No one else seemed to think this was odd, which made it even more entertaining.

Later that day we visited the local clinic to get some medicine for my face, and I was entirely impressed by the whole place. Everything looked clean and new, and we were in and out of the clinic in 30 minutes. Afterwards we ate our last dinner in Chile. I must say it was bittersweet having our last delicious salmon and our last pisco sour.

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