Haggard from over-night travel, two professors, seven undergrads, and I arrived in Santiago at 5:30am on Sunday, March 16. We passed through Customs, collected our rental van, and ventured into downtown Santiago with, what we came to realize, a faulty GPS unit which had its rights and lefts confused. (Don't ask me how or why, as this was the source of many frustrations which I'd prefer to forget.) Thus, navigating the streets of Santiago - complete with bicycles, carts, and reckless drivers - was a challenge, but we made our way to the hostel and checked-in. One of the guys behind the counter - not realizing my familiarity of Chilean slang - said to the other with a wry smirk after hearing my name, "Michelle es el nombre de mi polola." I replied, "Si? De tu polola? De la presidenta tambien." He quickly retracted, "No, no tengo polola." They didn't try to pull any more fast ones on me after that.
Despite our lack of sleep, we ventured into Santiago for a day of site-seeing with my lab mate's sister, Gabriela. We went to the Plaza de Armas, the Cathedral, and la Moneda (President's Palace). Then we went to Barrio Bellavista - considered the artsy, bohemian neighborhood of Santiago - for lunch. We finished up the daylight hours with touristy "must-dos" - riding the funicular (cable car) and teleferico (gondola) up and about Cerro San Cristobal for marvelous views of the city. Fortunately, the infamous smog of Santiago was not too thick to impair our view. After all this, many were tired, so we went back to the hostel, and everyone else called it a night. I, however, went out with Gabriela to a restaurant in my old neighborhood - Providencia - and we ate manchas and drank pisco sours.
On Monday, our program of university, vineyard, and winery tours began. We collected an unfortunate parking ticket for our windshield before we hit the road for the Antumapu campus of the University of Chile, on the rough, southeast side of Santiago. Littered streets and stray dogs abounding in this neighborhood, the agriculture campus of the university was once in the countryside before city sprawl pushed poor residents in its direction. Nonetheless, the University of Chile is renowned for its agriculture programs, and it was on this campus - in the Department of Food Science and Enology - that I worked two years ago. My former supervisor, Alvaro, welcomed us, gave us a talk on the Chilean wine industry and grape-growing regions, and then showed us the enology facilities.
I will comment briefly on the Chilean wine industry and grape-growing regions, as this will help in understanding the rest of this post. First, the Chilean wine industry is predominately an export-driven industry. Chile has garnered world-wide reputation for producing quality wines, sold at reasonable prices. Domestic wine consumption is low, and domestic sales are not profitable. Grape-growing exists in the central valley - the backbone of Chile, running north/south - and in transverse valleys, running perpendicular to the central valley and spanning from the Andes to the coast. The wine regions of Chile are named for these transverse valleys, and starting in the north and going south, the ones that we visited were Aconcagua, Casablanca, Maipo, Colchagua, and Maule. Snow melt from the Andes provides surface irrigation water to these vineyards planted in alluvial soils.
Concha y Toro is the largest wine enterprise in Chile, and wines of their various labels are easily found in the United States. Contrast this to those of Haras de Pirque, which is a boutique winery that focuses on quality, not quantity. These were the two vineyards/wineries that we visited in the Maipo valley after finishing our visit at the University of Chile. Given my research in soils, I was interested to learn that, at both Concha y Toro and Haras de Pirque, soil quality is of utmost concern. They described their "terroir" as being among the best in Chile, and evidenced their gravelly-loams to us when we walked through the vineyards. While we did not try any wines at Concha y Toro, I would have to say that the Cab Sauvs we tried at Haras de Pirque were my favorite wines of the entire trip.
We drove to the coast that evening and stayed in a hostel in Viña
Tuesday, we toured the Casablanca and Aconcagua valleys. As we made our way to Casablanca, a missed exit meant arriving upon a toll booth. Justine was driving but doesn't speak a word of Spanish. She rolled down the window for me to speak to the attendant. I said that we had missed our exit and just needed to turn-around. Yes, this was awkward, but what was more awkward was what proceeded. Rather than let us through the gate so that we may turn-around, the attendant left her booth and started signaling to the long line of traffic which had gathered behind us to back-up and move to another lane. Oh, gosh. That was embarrassing. Then, we backed up as well and made a suicidal U-turn through orange cones and got ourselves going back the way we had come to our desired exit. Chileans are crazy drivers, and their influence was rubbing off on us. We arrived at Veramonte vineyards laughing hysterically at the incident which had just passed.
The Casablanca valley where Veramonte is located is renowned for its white wines. White varieties grow well in this cooler valley, which receives coastal fog and breezes. This differs from the hotter and drier Aconcagua valley, which we visited in the afternoon. First, we went to the agriculture experiment station of the Catholic University of Valparaiso. The director of the station - Eduardo - is a Cornell alum and was happy to show us their citrus, avocado, and cherry plantings. Then, we visited the vineyards of Errazuriz - the oldest winery in Chile. We saw two sites and learned about their vine and soil management practices for the steep, hillside plantings. Here, vine rows go with the slope, instead of being terraced across the slope. It was explained that terracing actually does more damage by moving/removing topsoil than planting with the slope.
After two full days of visits and much driving, Wednesday was scheduled as a free-day. I took advantage of the time to see my "Chilean mom", Betty, and go for a run along the coasts of Viña and Reñaca. Our lunch plan was to go as a group to my advisor's favorite seafood restaurant in Valparaiso - the sister, port city of Viña
The town of Santa Cruz was recently revitalized due to the wine industry of Colchagua and the wealth of a locally-raised millionaire, who will remain nameless. A glamorous hotel and natural history museum of private collection are evidence of this man's wealth, which according to the U.S. Customs Office, was achieved through international arms manufacturing and dealing to Iraq during the Reagan administration. But all of those are just factoids; we did not spend much time in Santa Cruz itself, but instead toured the valley renowned for red cultivars. Cab Sauv, Merlot, Carmenere (*the* variety of Chile), and various others are grown and made into varietal wines and blends. Our first visit on Thursday was to Viñedos Organicos Emiliana, and in my opinion, this was the most fascinating of all our visits. VOE is a biodynamic vineyard. Without going into too much detail, biodynamic farming is unique system. It was developed in 1924 by Rudolph Steiner, and beyond the organics of not using synthetic chemicals, biodynamic farming also means using fermented herbal and mineral preparations in composts and sprays, and using an astrological planting and practice calendar. This system of production requires much time and dedication! Interestingly, VOE does not put "biodynamic" on their wine labels, which means they grow their grapes this way because they believe in it, not for a market advantage.
Our group was fortunate to have a contact in the Maule Valley just outside of San Rafael. There is a Cornell student in Food Science whose family owns a large vineyard/winery in this region, called Via Wines. When we arrived on Thursday evening, we took a tour of the winery facilities. The factory-style operation was different from anything seen in the Finger Lakes region of NY. On subsequent days, we toured the vineyards with the vineyard manager and had a tasting with the head enologist. It was gracious of them to give their time since this was Holy Week/Easter weekend, and these are important holidays in Chile.
Our hosts were very generous to us in time, accommodation, and comfort. The house where we stayed was a beautifully-restored relic; we ate traditional Chilean food (including my favorite pastel de choclo); and we made our way on some roads-less-traveled to hike the Andes at Altos de Lircay national reserve.
Though it probably needn't be said, it was an amazing trip with great culture, adventure, learning, and of course, wine. Some of that wine even made its way back to the States and may be coming to a dinner party near you. Pictures are posted to my Shutterfly account. Enjoy!
