Vino Chileno

The Metro to the Valle de Maipo - Carmenere Country

Chile now produces over 700 million litres of wine per year.

I must say I have never taken a metro so far out of town that I was gliding through vineyards. This is what will happen when you take the yellow line in Santiago from end to end. When Max called last night to go out to Concha y Toro, I was not keen on paying the 30,000 pesos to get a tour van to pick us up and babysit our guided tour. So we decided to meet the next morning near his apartment and try with public transport at a fraction of the cost. We set off after a coffee in Tobolaba and catching up on tales from New Zealand.

Like a mouthful of smokey chocolate – I was excited to sample this rare wine on location. It turned out Max had a personal reason to be excited. He had worked for Conch y Toro from his advertising job in London. They were a client for whom he tested market penetration across Europe.

The lure was the elusive Carmaniere wine that is now unique to Chile. The ancient varietal was a great success for French wine in the past. The vines had already been brought over from Medoc when the Carmaniere grape was all but wiped out by a grape disease in the rest of the world. Except for isolated Chile where the Andean mountains kept disease from crossing over. It was missold as Merlot by unkowing vineyards until 1994 when the genetic link was made to Carmaniere.

Upon arrival in Pirque, one of Santiago's poorest neigborhoods. It took a good while to find the right little collectivo bus that would take us to the dusty gates of a mass market wine giant. Thanks to Max's spanish we eventually found the right bus. An old man actually came up to us, after nobody else seem to have even heard of Chile's biggest vineyard.

Personally I felt the tour was good, but a bit disneyland. We both liked the devil's cellar whose legend is so successfully used to promote the wine. I also found it nice that they walk you through the palatial gardens, and give you a wine to walk around with. The price however was a bit much for two small tastes and a guide who might have only just started.

A cellar frequented by the devil was a rumour spread by the owner to keep his bottles from dissapearing into the hands of thieving locals.

Either way we were proud to have made it out their on our own. I was then very lucky to try Max's housemate's new Mexican restaurant on its opening day. Max had bought him a Jeobaum as gesture of thanks for letting him stay. Next week all these fun and games will be over as I buckle down to learn Spanish inside the classroom with Steph.

Steph and I sampled as many supermarket Carmaniere's as decently possible. My favorite was the Missiones carmaniere (found almost everywhere) and the Oveja Negra merlot blend.

Wine can be had for 1000-2000 in supermarkets, but 2000 to 3000 will get you a very good bottle ($3-5).