4 November 2004

Vina Undurraga

My cousin Richard invited me to a tour of the Vina Undurraga winery with him and his wife, Miriam. Here we are with one of the several antique carriages in front.

A view from the soon-to-be entrance (we came in through the back). They are renovating and just put in a parking lot off to the left. Absolutely beautiful place... even the parking lot.

We picked the right day to go. It was sunny and gorgeous. You could see out across the vineyard all the way to the mountains. All of Santiago is in a big valley between the Andes and the coastal range, which makes for good vistas.

Since our guide didn't speak much English, Richard practically gave me the tour on his own (he is in the tourism business and already knew his way around quite well). They were excited about the modern italian machinery. Makes the place look pretty industrial, but I have to admit that wine made in large sanitary vats appeals to me more than something someone has been stomping around in.

Miriam in front of the barrels of reserve wine. This is the kind of good but relatively inexpensive ($7/bottle) wine Chile is known for. They also have "table wine" which skips the barrel stage and is often sold in cardboard boxes; it tends to taste more like alcoholic grape juice than wine.

We had a wine tasting in the lovely study that once was inhabited by the original owner, Senor Undurraga. Richard explained to me what "legs" are, as well as some other techniques for judging the quality of wine (I've always wondered about that).

This was our guide, whose name currently escapes me, but I think it might have been Norman. He was very nice, just about the perfect guide, if only I understood spanish better.

Had to have the couple in the buggy. :)

I highly recommend a winery tour for anyone visiting Chile. I'm pretty sure the price of the tour (~$6) didn't cover the price of the wine they gave us for tasting (3 bottles at $7/bottle), but I suppose usually there are more people in the tour group. Expect to buy some wine to take home with you--it's extremely cheap for the quality. Undurraga is also one of the few wineries in the world producing Carmonere, which went extinct in Europe due to a plague, and only recently has been reimported from Chile (or so I'm told).

Our guide mentioned that they hold weddings on the estate, and if I lived in Chile that is certainly where I would want mine--it's beautiful.