Sunday morning we awoke in our room-fit-for-a-king at Los Vascos. We enjoyed breakfast outside and then decided to drive to Santa Cruz, the small town nearby. The city is very poor, with many old, run-down homes, shacks almost – there are horse drawn carts and farm animals in every yard. In the main city area, there are churches and small shops and restaurants. We walked around the Santa Cruz hotel area. Most tourist stores had jewelry made of Lapislazoulie, a regional stone that is dark sea blue. We bought some for all the ladies in our life. Upon return I went for a quick run through the vineyards, which was amazing. Sometimes running is the best way to get to know an area or appreciate the beauty and peacefulness of where you are. We then enjoyed lunch with Alfredo & his wife, followed by a nice siesta. The afternoon was spent with the row boat on the small lake, until Alfredo and his wife came to tell us that they were leaving, but that we would enjoy dinner that night with the Mexican group visiting. Oh dear, we thought. Dinner with strangers and we speak, no Spanish! We were a bit nervous, but showered and relaxed on our patio, waiting for dinner. At dinner, we met the group of wholesalers and representatives from Mexico and Urugray. At least 3 of them spoke English very well and they turned out to be some of the funniest and enjoyable people we’d met! The evening went on for a while, then Mike and I excused ourselves due to an early morning appointment. It was sad to know we were to leave the incredible Los Vascos home, but we knew the day to follow, our last day, would be amazing as well.
Day 9: Saturday, Santiago / Los Vascos
Time to leave Santiago and the lovely San Cristobal hotel. It was a tight schedule so we were up and ready for breakfast on time. When we returned to our room, room service came with a bottle of bubbly and cake to celebrate Mike’s birthday – these hotel folks are on top of things! So after our second breakfast containing sugar and alcohol, we decided to see some of Santiago before we headed down to Los Vascos. I was quite determined, particularly after our fiasco in Valpariso, to see the San Cristobal. Shockingly, we were able to find the entrance to the funicular on our own. The funicular, which is like a multi-level cable car, drags you slowly up the hill to the top, where you can see the enormous statue of the Virgin Mary and overlook the entire city of Santiago. Sadly, this was the only touristy thing we did in Santiago – the rest of our time was spent on wine tours or driving to wine tours. But this was definitely the perfect way to end out time in the city. The view was fantastic although the city quite smoggy. Finally we’re on our way down to Los Vascos, at least an hour and a half late. This increased to 2 hours trying to get out of the city again. The interesting thing about Chile, all highways are privately owned, so there is no rhyme or reason to the numbers or the signs to get on or off of a highway. We stop at Pronto, the only fast food restaurant we can find – also doubles as a gas station. Finally, we arrive at the Los Vascos home. The home is nestled near the small town of Santa Cruz in the Rapel Valley of Chile. It is an enormous home, built young but decorated to look old. Baron Eric Rothschild, owner of the winery, sends new decorations as he finds them to go in particular places in the house. He does a good job - the decorations are spectacular and the views breathtaking. Upon arrival, even after running two hours late, we were asked by our hosts if we would like to rest or freshen up. After being two hours late we found that to be bad form, so we jumped in the car to go taste. We first went to the Los Vascos winery tasting room, which was very French in it’s stark white walls. The wines were delicious, with a particular note on the 2001 wines being quite different from those before it – the ’01 vintage was the first to be made by Marcello, the new winemaker. Marcello also took us around the vineyards, which were beautiful and extensive. The weather was spectacular. Warm, sunny and just perfect. We went to our rooms to freshen up and then went to sit on the porch and wait for dinner. There we watched the sunset over the hills and the lake while sipping rose and eating fresh garden tomatoes with mozzarella. Sigh… Marcello & Alfredo joined us, and to our delight, brought their wives, both of whom are pregnant. One was 5 months along, the other 6 months. We had most delicious dinner that was French based but with the freshest Chilean ingredients. It was light, but not too much food or too much wine, which was a relief. It was Michael’s birthday so Alfredo arranged a cake and singing, which was so lovely. We then retired to the living room for more singing and playing. Alfredo’s wife is a classical pianist so took to the keyboard, while Marcello and Alfredo took turns with the guitar. Soon the Chilean winemaker was playing Bon Jovi and Poinson on the guitar while I tried to sing. It was time for bed shortly after. Obviously.
Day 8: Friday, Santiago
By Gwendolyn
We woke early to drive to De Martinio Winery just one hour south of Santiago. Another winery with some money behind it. The De Martino family of Italy bought the land and winery, but as the winemaker happily notes, they stay out of all wine decisions. Like Ventisquero and Veramonte, there was a guard at a gate. I wonder if the winemakers or anyone tells the guards of our appointments. They all eye us as though we are some crazy Americans, trying to visit their winery uninvited. And yet, most of these wineries seem to want to be open to the public. Then the guard explains to us in Spanish where to go, we nod and say Gracias although we have no idea what he is saying. Just doing their jobs, but it is quite different from the wineries of the US.
At De Martino we were greeted by the winemaker and marketing director. Both took us out in the truck to tour the vineyards, giving us a hat to wear, explaining, “you are very white.”Unlike Ventisquero, the vines were all in straight lines. Everything was well manicured and trained. We saw the usual: Carmenere, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec. One thing we did learn, that we’d seen while driving to Ventisquero, is vines that are trained very tall and in a canopy style, where the grapes hang down, with leaves canopied over them. You can walk under them and look up and the grapes are hanging down over you, like a fort made of vines. We learned that these are for table grapes. You can taste the difference between table and wine grapes by eating them side by side. De Martinio also had an organico section for their organic wines.
We went to the greeting room to taste through their line up. My favorite was the Chardonnay - quite possibly the best Chardonnay I’ve had from the area. The grapes come from Limari, a valley far north that is not yet used by many wineries or for many grapes, but I’m sure it will be, as more discover its potential. They are exported through Global Vineyard Imports. The tasting and tour was short and sweet. We left and, as we had thought ahead on directions getting back to the hotel, arrived as quickly as we ever had. We wondered why the concierge did not give us the directions that we discovered for ourselves. We’re thinking of making a pamphlet for hotel guests driving to wineries, saving other tourists from our same fate of arguing and getting lost. Although most tourists probably don’t need it as they are all on buses! There are so many buses and cruise ship groups. They dock possibly at Valpariso or another port, then bus in all the people for a few days, I’m sure the bus takes them to the sights. It was amazing how many Americans, Australians & British were around us. No Chileans at all.
That afternoon we ate lunch by the pool, goat cheese salad. Again, the goat cheese is very different here. Not as pungent as the French kind, and very hard and crumbly, reminding me of sheep’s cheese. It was so nice to eat light. We sat by the pool, our last day at the hotel, and enjoyed the weather. We left by 4 as we had to meet Alfredo downstairs at 5pm. From the hotel, Alfredo (and his driver) took us to Cousino Macul, a winery in the city of Santiago although it feels like its own little oasis. Again, a Chilean winery started by foreigners with money. In this case, old money. First we saw the main office, which had round desks made (or at least shaped like they were made) from large old barrels, botte type barrels. Attractive design. We did not tour any of the vineyards, just the old winery. We got a good history of the winery touring through the wood & barrels that are, thankfully, no longer used. They have an amazing library there with wines that date back to the 1940’s. We tasted through the wines down in their basement/wine library. Then the wine manager took us to see their ‘park’, which is in fact an enormous tree garden. They must have every type of tree there. Magnolias, weeping willows, redwoods, odd trees you think you’d only see in Australia, it was amazing. They have 10 full-time gardeners to tend this garden/park. Every thing is so well maintained, and they have a little rock fortress in the back with chairs engraved with each son’s name and statues of Poseidon and Venus. Streams and babbling brooks and iron gates showing the deception of Eve. It was truly amazing. We drove back to the hotel to ready ourselves for dinner. As Alfredo & Mike had a cigar in the bar, I got ready. I met them downstairs and we enjoyed a Cousino Macul red blend. Alfredo then took us to dinner. Unfortunately (or fortunately) he took us to dinner at the exact same restaurant we had gone to on Wednesday. But since the restaurant was excellent and we knew not many were open, we said nothing and only hoped that staff would not recognize us!
It was delicious again. Alfredo and I had the waiter bring a Birthday Eve cake for Mike.
Day 7: Thursday, Santiago
By Gwendolyn
After much debate because it was our only non-scheduled day in Santiago, we decided to drive to Vina Ventisquero and meet with Felipe Tosso. The trek was three hours long as the winery is more out of the way than most.
An oddity we noticed: on the highway, we saw so many people crossing in the middle, this is a 4 lane highway with cars going 120 Km/hr, and people cross it like it’s a regular city street. We thought perhaps the many memorials we saw on the side of the road were not from people dying in car accidents, but people being hit because they were crossing the road with cars going that fast! Even odder, we never saw anything on either side of the road to make them cross, it was very strange.
Most areas we passed on the drive were poor, we saw lots of agricultural land shacks. Ventisquero was quite big. Driving in you pass by Agrosuper’s (their owners/investors) fields & factories. Possibly explaining their location. The vineyards of Ventisquero wind around and are not in straight squares because when planting they did not want to disrupt the flora & fauna. They have a number of native and natural trees and plants surrounding the vineyards and the winery uses sustainable agriculture, recycling all of their resources. Everything they take from the land is put back into the land.
Felipe Tosso, the winemaker, spoke excellent English, he’d actually lived in US when he was 5 with his family. Touring the vineyards, Felipe got down and dirty, showing us the soils, tasting the grapes, pointing out the leaf growth and veraison. He reminded me of some winemakers in France, who so love their land and vineyard, that they get excited to talk about it and explain the process. We then tasted through many of the wines, which were all showing lovely, except the Chardonnay that was corked twice before we got a good bottle. My favorite was the Carmenere Grey. Really delicious and complex and smooth, particularly for a Carmenere, with the spice and meaty flavor I expect from the variety, but it carried an elegance that I found impressive. The many different labels of the brand were confusing, I feel it could use a little more uniformity to help in branding. Felipe asked us to join him for lunch and so we did. Lunch was a salad with lots of hearts of palm (very popular) and iceberg lettuce (also very popular). Then some meat & rice and a most amazing ice cream of a native fruit that was just phenomenal. We drove the 3 hours home and got VERY lost getting back into Santiago. The street we took to get on the highway was unfortunately one-way so coming off of the highway was more difficult. We used the sun (sets in the west) to get at least a direction of which way we should go. We eventually found a street that was on our map and were able to follow it to the hotel. It was already 6pm but still somewhat sunny. We sat by pool for about an hour and unwound from our much-too-eventful drive. I went to the gym, where I used early 90’s Nautilus equipment and watched some Olympic skiing. We decided to have dinner at El Cid, a restaurant in the hotel highly recommended by our Fromer’s guide, not that this guide had helped at ALL in our trip so far. Their maps are terrible and the one restaurant they suggested in Vina del Mar made me ill. They redeemed themselves a bit at this dinner. We enjoyed delicious seafood and drank a Morande Chardonnay, the wine was good and matched well with the food. One odd thing about the restaurant: the food was delicious, but the lighting was so bright. Typically, restaurants such as this one, particularly in the states, have more dim lighting, but this was almost florescent. The service, however, was excellent as always, and the ability to go up the elevator straight to our room was appealing.
Day 6: Wednesday, Vina del Mar
By Gwendolyn
Our last day at Vina del Mar. We awoke to take advantage of the breakfast that was included with our room: first time we’d done it as every day before we’d been sleeping well through breakfast hours. We could tell it was going to be a beautiful day which was somewhat upsetting as we were now leaving... In case you ever visit Vina del Mar:
NOT everyone speaks English, so don’t expect it. It is not a beach-laden area. There are hotels with pools and very, very crowded stretches of beach but mostly rocks and stone walls. There are good restaurants if you pick correctly. The prices of wine are wonderful in most of them, the hotel-based restaurants like to charge you more. Definitely more of a tourist place for other Chileans than foreigners, and directions are not so great: do NOT buy a Fodor’s guide, look online and print out exact maps of certain areas.
We left Vina del Mar and drove the two hours to Santiago. Arriving in Santiago was not so bad. The main highway, 68, turns into the main drag of Santiago, called Avenue Bernardo O’Higgins: apparently a very important man down there. The road is separated into 8 lanes - 4 for each side - 2 for cars and 2 for busses (and only busses). And there are a lot of buses & they are all yellow. It’s a different place to drive, as most foreign countries are. Many one ways and lots of no turns, plus the road signs change whether you are turning right or left, and the writing on all signs are so very small. My eyesight is not so good, but Mike, with perfect eyesight, couldn’t see them either. Even if you could read them chances are a bus is blocking the sign as you go by. That was our first experience of Chileans’ directional aptitude post-Vina del Mar. Our concierge at the Sheraton hotel had given us directions that seemed easy enough. However, the roads he told us to turn on were all the opposite one-way, so we had to fend for ourselves and double back quite a few times.
We eventually got to the hotel. It was an amazing difference than our smaller hotel in Vina del Mar. We quickly saw the differences between hotel and luxury collection hotel. Everyone at this hotel spoke English perfectly, greeted us by name, and we received impeccable service from every member of the staff. Seeing the bright sun and beckoning pool, we ran upstairs to put on our bathing suit and ran back down to the pool. This was the pool I had been looking for at Vina del Mar. It was round and beautiful, there was a lawn area to use as well as a bar and restaurant. We ate lunch at a buffet with some very determined bees. I shooed and shooed but the waiter finally told me to stop, that the bee would take what he wanted and then leave me alone. I followed the advice, and the bee then landed directly onto my piece of pork, went to work and eventually left carrying a very large piece. Then it was gone. Luckily, he did not land on my wine - a Cousino-Macul Chardonnay. We sat by pool for a few hours, but we are whiter than white still, so when it got too intense and hot we left and got ready for dinner with Ricardo Rivadeneira-Hurtado, who makes wine at Maquis and is a partner with Global Vineyard Imports, an importer in Berkeley that has a large Chilean portfolio. He picked us up at 9pm with wife, Pilar, they took us to a lovely Peruvian/Chilean reataurant. It was one of the only restaurants open at the time - during February, everything shuts down like August in France. We opened 3 wines: 03 and 04 of Maquis and then the Domus Aurea. All showed well and the Maquis, while not terribly complex, is a neat blend of Syrah, Carmenere and Malbec, the ‘04 has a bit of Cabernet Franc instead of Malbec, and, in turn, has a bit more structure. It was a late dinner: I know the Domus was good, but it was so late and I had had too much to compare it to.
Day 5: Tuesday, Valentine's Day @ Vina del Mar
Yay! Better weather! We woke late, of course, shared Valentine’s greetings and then dressed for lunch. As we walked down the road to a place for lunch, we noticed that clouds were on the horizon. Mike said we should turn back because he knew that if I were in a restaurant and watched the sun go away and had no time to sit in it, I would unhappy - and he did not like the idea of what mood might follow. So, we turned around, put on our bathing suits and parked ourselves on the upper deck of the hotel where we enjoyed sun for a while, but then saw the clouds come in (sometimes Mike knows what he’s talking about). We adjourned downstairs to the hotel coffee shop and had another overpriced lunch. Oh well – worth it for the little bit of sun. Afterwards, it looked like the sun was returning, so Mike went to book a massage while I went back to the deck and sunned myself. It was a beautiful afternoon. At 6pm I ventured to the gym, where I was accosted by what I think was a complementary personal trainer. He spoke no English except for numbers, and I at least understand those in Spanish. So he had me going from machine to machine before he let me on the elliptical. Not sure why… I did not ask for help and he did not ask for pay… but I got a pretty good workout. Mike headed over to the casino while I was sweating it up. I didn’t ask how much he spent but I know he didn’t win. However, I also know he did not lose much either. We had 9:30 dinner reservations at Delicious del Mar which we’d heard good things about – from Fodor’s. We sat out on the hotel deck first for a glass of champagne, and the weather was so nice. Lots more people enjoying themselves, taking lots of pictures of the sunset. At the restaurant, it was a Valentine’s special. So we started with Pisco sours. Then moved onto the “house†wine and special meal. After so many wonderful culinary experiences here, I was so disappointed in this horrid meal. I felt quite ill after the first course. Everything was seafood and covered in cream - lots of cream. By dessert I was ready to go home. Luckily, every part of Valentine’s Day before that was lovely.