Chilean Vineyards to visit!

Good Times Travel
#1

My first post on the forums here!

My partner and I are travelling to Chile this Easter for a friend’s wedding and will visit many vineyards whilst we are there. I wonder whether anyone else has visited before and whether they visited a particular vineyard of interest?

Or maybe you could suggest one of your favourite Chilean wines and we’ll investigate the actual vineyard for you!

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#2

I have just joined the community and have seen your entry on wineries to visit in Chile. My wife and I went to Chile in Feb to attend a relative’s wedding in Viña del Mar (great fun). Villard winery near Casablanca was recommended by another guest, a Frenchman who had visited a number of the wineries. We had a great visit there, entertained by the proprietor Thierry Villard and his wife. I particularly liked the Chardonnay and the Pinot Noir. Good website, must book in advance. TWS stocks the Chardonnay.
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#3

Where abouts in Chile will you be staying? It’s a big country :slight_smile:

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#4

I might be wrong - but I think the original post is from a year ago, so I assume the trip had already happened… Be nice if @mbetteridge reveals all :blush:

#5

Oh didn’t spot that! Well in case it’s useful to others, here is a quick summary of the ones I’ve visited:

  • Casas del Bosque, Casablanca. Interesting tour, friendly guide. Tasting was nicely presented and the wines were tasty. They have a restaurant, we didn’t eat there though, but it’s reportedly quite good.
  • Bodegas RE, Casablanca. Did the tasting but not the tour. They make rather eclectic blends that are fun to try. Tasting was nicely presented.
  • Emiliana, Casablanca. Nice setting but we found everything else to be rather lacklustre. No winemaking facilities on site.
  • Kingston Family Vineyards, Casablanca. Feels like a California winery dropped into Chile. All the staff are Americans, and so were all the other visitors whilst we were there. Strange experience… and not cheap.
  • Loma Larga, Casablanca. Friendly and knowledgable tour guide, winemaking facilities on site in a rather cool building. Tasty wines.
  • Errazuriz, Aconcagua. Historic vineyard with beautiful surroundings. Tour and tasting were very personal.
  • Flaherty, Aconcagua. Boutique winery run by a lovely couple Ed & Jen. Definitely off the beaten track compared to the larger scale operations in the area. We enjoyed our visit very much.
  • El Escorial, Aconcagua. Quite a few interesting and experimental wines coming from this producer. Tour and tasting were good, wish they had a better shop though.
  • Viña Peumayen, Aconcagua. About as personal as a tour can get, basically just wandering around with the delightful owner for a couple of hours (note: he only speaks Spanish)
  • Viña von Siebenthal, Aconcagua. Nice setting, private tours… slightly difficult to get a booking (and make sure you do, don’t just turn up!). Great wines and our tour guide was happy to throw in a couple of free bottles and a discount at the shop.
  • Concha y Toro, Santiago. Very famous producer. The experience is very touristy… large groups herded through constantly, a few gimmicks along the way. Not bad if that’s your type of thing.
  • Santa Rita, Santiago. Also very tourist driven, but the historic grounds there are very picturesque, so certainly make up for that.
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#6

I stayed one night in a cottage Villa Miramar at the vineyard at Casa Marin. It was beautiful and probably best night of my 4 week tour of South America that included Peru, Chile and Argentina.

https://www.casamarin.cl/villacasamarin-eng

#7

Goodness - I’d totally forgotten about this thread!

Well like @_nj we visited many vineyards, but it seems we went to different areas. We started in Talca (Maule region). This area, although a bustling down, is not particularly touristy, especially to Westerners. This is due in part to it being the epicentre of the devastating 2010 earthquake that struck Chile. The town is still in disrepair and it has had an impact on the smaller, boutique vineyards that relied on tourism. Very few of the vineyards had English speakers so my partner had to learn a lot about wine in Spanish very quickly. We visited:

  • Balduzzi - lovely staff and entry level wine was good for the price, as Chilean wine can be, but nothing memorable. We have one of their premium wines in our cellar for ageing.

  • Gillmore - lovely Rose that was on offer - 100% Syrah - refreshing, subtle and dry. More old world than new world in many ways. They are part of VIGNO producing Carignan from dry farmed old vines. They’re red were very jammy, lots of baked fruit and very bold, but with smooth tannins.

We later cycled around the east of the city essentially knocking on the doors of several vineyards. As it was out of season and also less touristy than it once was we didn’t really manage to taste much or visit anywhere, however we had a LOVELY tour at Corral Victoria which is sort of the hub of the area with a very good wine shop. Their wine (mainly carmenere) wasn’t great, but it was worth a visit to taste a range of wines, buy some more bottles and visit their website. We also managed an unofficial tour of Valle Frio which, from what we could understand, is a large bulk producer of entry level wines.

On our way back North we stopped off at the legendary Miguel Torres and had a fantastic lunch but also had an amazing tasting of a variety of their wines from across the country. I no longer have my notes to hand (I started replying a while ago when I did have them, but have now misplaced them!), but their mid-range offer was their most exciting and best value for money - as is often the way with Chilean wines. Their Sav Blanc in particular.

Santa Cruz is much more geared towards wine tourism (and the prices of hotels reflect this!).

We visited:

*Laposottle/Clos Aplta. Legendary, needs little introduction. Wines live up to the hype. My partner actually managed to convince my friends and family to group together to buy me 3 bottles of the 2005 Clos Apalta, of which we have two left.
*Vina Montes - lovely restaurant =- best steak my partner has ever eaten. Wine was good, again mid-range (up tp £15) bottles were good.
*Neyen - lovely vineyard, great tour and why I’ve been reminded to reply to this thread as I’m currently drinking their 2013 purchased from The Wine Society. They produce only one range a year ‘spirit of Apalta’ or ‘Espiritu de Apalta’ which is a red blend of carmenere and cab sav from old vines. We had the 2011 and the 2013 - I preferred the 2011 when we were there - it was bolder and had more liquorice notes. A much more high end product (not as much as clos aplta though!)
*Vina MontGras - had a wonderful tasting and a mini tour with an excellent tour guide/sommelier who really encouraged us to discuss what we were sensing in each wine. Good entry level and mid range wines from their site in Santa Cruz but also from other sites across Chile. From memory their single lot Sauvignon Blanc was phenomenal and I have bottle in the rack.
*Laura Hartwig - my favourite winery in terms of the wines produced. An entry to mid range single varietal Cabernet Franc and Cab Sav was stunning and great value for money.

Apologies for a long winded and disjointed post - hope this is useful and feel free to ask anything :slight_smile:

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#8

Hope it’s OK to re-ignite this thread again. We’re just finishing up another trip to Chile, so I have a few more wineries / vineyards to add to the list (including 3 which overlap with @mbetteridge !)

In Casablanca we only visited a single vineyard this year:

  • Indomita. This is a fairly large scale producer. Beautify setting with fantastic views over the valley. We dined at the restaurant, everyone loved it. Only detraction for some might be this is winery is clearly a popular destination for Santiago based tourists, so if you’re after more “boutique" wineries there are better options.

We went down to Santa Cruz (Colchagua) for a few days… extremely hot at this time of the year, be warned!

  • Lapostolle / Clos Apalta winery. We were fortunate to be the only ones booked onto the tour at the slot we opted for, so it was essentially a private tour. Great views over the valley. The guide was very thorough and gave great insights into the winemaking process. Tasting in the barrel room on the bottom floor was a highlight. First time I’ve seen a winery use Zalto glasses too.
  • Laura Hartwig. Fairly low scale operation. The guide was fantastic. Tasty wines too. My only real criticism is that there wasn’t a huge amount of substance to the tour - standing at the end of a line of tanks and then at the end of a line of barrels right next door was pretty much the limit of the “walk around” part.
  • Montes. I was a bit disappointed with this tour. Starting off at the shop put a bit of sour taste in my mouth when I saw the rip-off prices had on their various icon wines (80,000CLP / ~£80 for bottle of Purple Angel? No thanks!). The tour seemed a little rushed and it certainly had a more touristy air to it, including being guided back into the shop at the end. We didn’t dine at the restaurant, so I can’t comment on that, though I’ve heard good things - sounds like @mbetteridge had a good experience :slight_smile:
  • Viu Manent. Very much the opposite of our experience at Montes, the tour was super relaxed. Only ones on the tour, so essentially private. At the tasting the wines were opened there and then, and after the initial tasting the guide left us to evaluate and enjoy the wines for as long as we liked. They also allowed us to take one of the bottles over to the restaurant to enjoy with lunch. If you dine there you’ll get 20% off in the shop as well.

Then up in San Felipe (Aconcagua) for a few days we visited:

  • Viña San Esteban. Probably better known by their “In Situ” line. Beautiful views of the Andes from this location. The guide was fantastic. They have quite extensive facilities here, so plenty to see. Their wines are on the more budget side of things for the most part, but certainly pleasant.
  • Flaherty. Visited in previous years, so only dropped in for a tasting and to buy some bottles. Very accommodating as always.

On our next visit we’re hoping to head further south (Maule or Itata).

As a general comment on The Wine Society / Chile: it would be great to see more wines from smaller scale producers: the likes of Concha y Toro, Undurraga and De Martino are hardly short of representation in the UK. There are an incredible number of small producers in Chile that create fantastic wines and may well suffer with the current social and economic climate in the country.

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#9

This fills me with so much joy!! I plan to go back in the next 18-24 months so will try out some of these :slight_smile:

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