As promised, here is Part three of my monologue/diatribe on the recent trip to Chile and I’m finally going to start talking about grapes and wine.  Before I start wittering on about terroir, soil profiles and salinity gradients, a quick personal opinion is needed on what Chile is doing with its grape varietals.  The country has ‘diversified’ from the mainstream grape varietals and now does a lot more than just Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.  There is a move towards the drier climate Mediterranean grape varieties, which are much better suited to the heat and aridity of Chile.  The movers and shakers have realised that they need to play to their strengths rather than just produce masses of cheap plonk that can easily be undercut by the next ‘new kid on the block’.  Who knows what commercial beast is even now gathering strength to come roaring out of Eastern Europe, the Crimea or even India?

Outstanding: Syrah (the grape of the trip), Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc, Carignan and some of the Sauvignon Blancs.

Trying hard: Viognier.

Steady Eddies: Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.

Troubled child with behavioural problems: Carmenere.

Underperforming: Pinot Noir (oh, what a disappointment), Merlot and Riesling.

Grapes they should be planting: Tempranillo, Nero d’Avola and Negroamaro!

It has to be said that I tasted some jaw-droppingly good Chardonnay and quite a few gruesome Sauv Blancs, for example.  However, I stand by the above general comments, even though I’m expecting considerable ‘incoming fire’ as a result.  I’ll come back to the grapes mentioned above in a bit but I think considerable light will be shed on the matter by a quick rummage through the murky depths of terroir!

‘Terroir’ is defined by Wiki as “the special characteristics that the geography, geology and climate of a certain place bestow upon particular produce.”  The first thing that a Brit has to do in Chile is throw the rule book away…there are no rules!  You can plant what you like, where ever you like and whenever you like.  You can then do whatever the fumpf you fancy to it after it has been picked, crushed, fermented, racked, battonaged or any of the other several thousand other procedures you can inflict on a poor, tender young wine.  The viticulturists and winemakers have total freedom and the only thing that guides them is the quality that they want the wine to achieve and how much they can sell it for!  The customer will determine who was right and who was wrong, not a paper-pushing bureaucrat in some dimly lit office.  Of course, you can get the lemming effect but that’s a risk that you have to be prepared to take.  I discussed this with the winemakers at Montes and they were stunned into disbelieving silence by my stories of mass suicide by furry little rodents!  They probably still think that I was taking the **** out of them.

Furthermore, the ‘normal’ method of where to plant which vines, accrued over centuries of trial and error in Europe, simply does not apply in Chile.  The topography, climate, water supply, soil and, of course, humans, interact in many different processes.  Without being uber-boring, I’ll just quickly reiterate that the main factors affecting fruit/grapes in Chile are the lack of rainfall, the total dependance upon irrigation from Andean dams and the cooling influence of the Humboldt Current sweeping up the West of the American continent from Antarctica.  The enormous mass of cool water contained in this current produces early morning fogs, which sweep inland up the river valleys (Aconcagua, Rapel, Maipo etc) and blanket the vines from the morning sun.  The mists are gradually burned away by the sun and the temperature then rises steadily until approx 16:00, which is the hottest part of the day.  At that time, as if by magic, strong breezes start coming down from the Andes and blowing out towards sea, once again following the path of least resistance and using the river valleys as a conduit.  The temperature drops immediately and calms down the raging internal chemistry of the grape, even though photosynthesis continues unabated because of the continued sunshine.

We can see from this that the river valleys are critically important even though there isn’t a drop of water left in them!  I travelled across most of the major rivers in Central and Northern Chile and they were bone dry, like the dustbowls of Oklahoma in the 1930’s.  However, they have carved deep paths out through the mountain ranges, acting as the highways that air and any atmospheric moisture can travel along.  The proximity of the Pacific Ocean, river valleys and the huge Andean mountains are compressed so close together, and on such a large scale, that events happen on a big, regular scale – you can practically set your watch by it!

Some vineyards near the coast are blasting hot, others only a few km away are officially ‘cool’.  Some vineyards up in the hills are dry and arid, others are stuffed full of moisture retaining clay.  Things just never happen as you predict…local knowledge is the key!  Vina St Esteban, as I have mentioned already, is high up in the Andes by Chilean standards and the coastal fogs never reach it.  The river up there still has plenty of water and the altitude of the vineyards plays a major part in controlling the ripening of the grapes.  So, this is a European style anomaly and there are many, many variations on this theme.  Their top wine, Laguna des Incas, is a sublime mix of Syrah, Cab, Sangiovese and Carmenere.  The winemakers, Horacio and Fabricio feel that the ‘assemblage’ of grapes is much more than the sum of its parts…it really rocked for me!    Leyda Vineyards are 12km from the coast and in a cool-climate area.  “So far, so good”, you might think and stand back in expectation of a massive vineyard all planted to face North (remember we’re in the Southern hemisphere here) but their vineyards lie on a set of low rolling hills with exposure to three points of the compass and all points inbetween.  They have one clone of Sauv Blanc facing N-W, another N-E, then Viognier, Chardonnay and Riesling scattered in various directions and some top class Pinot Noir practically in the shade.  Their whites are very dynamic and racey.

Chocolan Estate lies in a small bowl facing North-west, if I remember rightly, with the different grape varieties cunningly situated to catch the correct amount of sun as it sweeps across the face of the hill and then disappears over the Andes.  Pilar, the charming female winemaker (it’s pretty much a women run outfit there) and I had a small but embarrassing moment after I questioned her on the presence of ‘asparagus’ flavours in her Sauv Blanc.  I could see her back stiffen and shoulders tense as she gave me a long and very deliberate ‘Paddington hard stare’.  She also gave me ‘death rays’ when I compared her (very good) Sauvignon Gris to Pinot Grigio because of its spicy pear character.  She thought I was talking about the stuff from Veneto when, in fact, I was comparing it to the very high quality wines of the Sud-Tirol and Alto Adige…OMG!  Unfortunately, Pilar had not tried these wines (try our delightful Pinot Grigio from St Michael Eppan, if you want to see what I meant) so that compliment spectacularly back-fired on me.  I was lucky that Patrick from our group sallied forth to my rescue, quickly interjecting about Garganega and Schopperttino …thanks, buddy!   Any awkwardness was dispelled the moment I tasted their single varietal Cabernet Franc, which hit my tastebuds like a steel fist in a velvet glove!  A wine of genuine class, poise and considerable impact.

Maycas, up in the North, lies on a baking hot, exposed plain but it has masses of limestone soil that adds an assertive, punchy, mineral zestiness to the grapes.  The vines have to burrow very deep, very quickly – their two year old vines are double the size of their European equivalents as the vines leaves need to produce huge amounts of energy for the roots.  The brutal effect of the sun is the price that you pay for such splendid grapes.  Their Syrah tasted like it had been on steroids!

Contrast that to Emiliana, the bio-dynamic winery, where all the above factors come into play but Steiner’s philosophy is seen to be of equal, if not greater, importance than the amount of colluvial grit in the soil.  Regardless of your opinion of bio-dynamic (turbo-organic with a big dollop of homeopathy in it), the wine maker, Cesar, passionately believes in it.    It’s not corporate bull or a calculated PR stunt but a deeply held conviction and one that I respect, even whilst I still think it’s utter voodoo.  However, their care for the soil was evident and their enlightened labour relations with the estate workers and fruit pickers were a much needed tonic.  This was the only estate we visited that was literally buzzing with insect life.  Chickens are used to keep slugs at bay, pheromones take care of nasty wasps and bugs and the beneficial insects pollinate the many herbs and medicinal plants to be found in and amongst the vines.  Oh, nearly forgot, the wines are excellent!  Their 100% Viognier was brilliant along with a Southern Rhone style blend of Viognier, Marsanne and Rousanne…outstanding!  All the malarkey about herbs air-drying in a deer bladder for six months and then being buried in barrels of soil with powdered quartz mixed in at one part per gadzillion was forgiven as soon as the first splash of wine hit my taste buds!

Haras de Pirque – forget the soil, grapes and wine while you stare, slack jawed, at umpteen million dollars worth of prestige Arabian stallions being paraded up and down.   The stud farm there gets visited by wealthy Arab sheiks on a regular basis.  They fly to Santiago in private jets, take a chopper to Haras, do a quick deal and climb back into the helicopter again to get back to Santiago and then who knows where?  The roof of the tasting room at the winery is the glass-bottomed fountain up in the garden and the walls are huge sheets of glass so you can see all the oak barrels etc.  Great architecture but, not surprisingly, lots of echo and reverb.  One of our group, Dave, had been a BBC sound engineer for many years and he could have sorted it out the problem in 10 minutes flat.

Lapostolle with its definite air of ‘top dog’ and six storeys of winery punched down into the rock to minimise any earthquake damage.  The private cellar at the very bottom of the building, has a floating ‘wing’ for access…you can really feel the brooding presence of the surrounding rock as you check out the drinking habits of the very wealthy.   Magnificent wines which seemed to be more suitable for Roman Emperors or mad Tzars rather than the likes of me!

Altair, next door to Lapostolle and Montes, is another ‘statement’ winery.  Only two wines, both red, and both utterly magnificent and expensive.  However, here we met Rene, the ‘Crazy Lopez’ of viticulture who was one of the highlights of our trip.  Have I mentioned Crazy Lopez before?  He was an ex Chilean air force pilot who used to work on the internal flights down to Patagonia, primarily servicing the small navy bases down there.  You’d get on the plane and see everybody crossing themselves.  As they approached the destination, the frequency of the religious gesturing doubled and then doubled again.  The flight, up until this point. had been perfect so what was the cause of all this anxiety?  Looking down from the window, you would gradually see the town and landing strip appear into view but still several thousand feet below.  Prayers, psalms and supplications to all the angels in heaven were now being sung up and down the plane.  At this point, Crazy Lopez would cut the engines, plummet like a rock towards Earth and, then just as it looked like everyone would be killed, he would flick the engines back on and execute a perfect, text-book landing.  He usually had to be escorted away from the plane under Police protection in order to stop the passengers tearing him to bits.  Well, Rene, the world esteemed viticulturalist at Altair is the Crazy Lopez of grapes!  Refractometers and phenolic ripeness indicators  were a waste of time, botrytis assessments a boring diversion when he could be sunbathing, soil moisture a trifling issue that nature would take care of in her own way etc.  Problems?  What problems? He simply picked a grape, bit into it and said “now we start!”  This is, of course, a wonderful bit of flam for guillible tourists but it was done with such brio and zest that we loved him for it.

Errazuriz with its wonderful winemaker, Pedro (?) who made glorious wines and who’s only comment seemed to be “hmmmmm. We could still do a bit better with this one, I think.  Perhaps in another 10 years or so.  If we replant high up on the other side of the hill.  With a different clone.  And less irrigation.  Using natural yeasts.”  Deadpan delivery – cracking punch lines!

Montes, producing glorious wines from the most stunning vineyards, which are grape porn. We were escorted around by some ridiculously talented, young winemakers and I felt very sorry for them when they had to parrot the corporate PR line on their feng shui designed winery.  They play Gregorian music to the barrels and all the barrels face a red painted wall, for good luck, as energy flows are displaced around the buildings by water movement.  I don’t have a problem with that as such…it’s an excellent marketing ploy to take as much cash from the up-and-coming Chinese market as possible.  Good luck to them.  However, please don’t expect me to swallow voodoo tosh like that, however juicy the worm on the hook!  Montes, however, redeemed themselves hugely by their brilliant new ‘Outer Limit’ wines, planted on vineyards only 4 km from the coast, and the shining star that is Chile’s stand out Carmenere, the Purple Angel.  This is 92% Carmenere and 8 % Petit Verdot and it really does sing like an angel.  If I had been condemned to face Madame La Guillotine during the Paris Terrors of 1793, I would have stepped swiftly and surely onto that platform, sustained by the bottle of Purple Angel coursing swiftly around my veins!

Oh, nearly forgot to mention that we tried a $200 bottle of Pisco (yes, Pisco) at Tamaya in Limari, a tiny distillation of only one barrel of Moscatel.  Very, very, very good but not $200 good, especially if it was my money.   This, however, is a good example of how Chile is prospering and changing its attitudes.  I forgive them for their venality as they were the one winery with the foresight to hand out hats when we visited and this kindness probably did more to protect me from sunstroke in Valpariso than any other factor.  My sincere thanks!

Now we come to the shining glory of Clos de Foux, which means the “vineyard of the crazy men” in French.  I’m not going to witter on about this except to say that I came, I saw, I worshipped.  I’ve got copious tasting notes but I don’t want to spoil the memory by getting jiggy over what % of x went into the third barrel of z.  I remember a Chardonnay that blew most Burgundies out of the water, a tank sample of Carignan that nearly reduced me to tears and a Pinot Noir that rattled me in the same way as restaurant critic Anton Ego when he tried the ratatouille in the Pixar film of the same name.   The last time I felt this way was when I visited Paul Janin at Clos du Tremblay in Moulin-A-Vent, another shrine to inspired wine making.  Francois Massoc goes into my top three winemakers of all time and the utterly charming Albert Cussen is the new Santa Claus!  They are intelligent, funny, barking mad, deadly serious, wildly experimental and don’t give a stuff about what anybody else thinks.  True mavericks…and they’ve still got the hots for the gorgeous, petite, dark haired, young female Spanish winemaker at Emiliana.  Albert, the elder statesman of the bunch, who is actually a cattle farmer from down South by trade, pretended that he’d never heard of her but I’m not so sure.  The others most certainly had!

I haven’t mentioned every winery that we visited (and my apologies to those that I’ve missed) but I’ve tried to give a taste of where we went, what was special and what the Chileans are doing with their wines.

So, if you look back to the top of this bit of fluff, I hope that you can see why it’s not so easy to categorise why some people get it right and others crash and burn.  The older plantations of Cabernet, Merlot and Chardonnay are often the wrong vine clones in the wrong place…but they were good enough at the time.  Now, a decade on, we look at these wines and see blandly flavoured whites and, to be brutally frank, ‘muddy’, soggy reds.  Please don’t even attempt to get me started on some of the pig ugly Pinot Noirs that I tried.  I was nearly driven to violence at a couple of the wineries when I tried their mutilated versions of this grape.

However, Chile has recognised the most obvious dangers and skirted some of the traps that Australia fell into.  Following the success of New Zealand, Chile has refined the model of where it wants to be and carefully moved up to the middle and, increasingly, the top of the market.  The next step, and the main message that I picked up in Chile, was the development of specific terroirs with a view to ensuring that the right grapes grow in the right areas, under the control of sympathetic viticulturists.  It took the Burgundians many centuries before they banished Gamay grapes to Beaujolais…the Chileans are doing the equivalent within twenty years!  The Chileans are not afraid to stand up and say “hey, get your laughing gear around this” either.  There were plenty of so-called ‘icon’ wines on taste at up to £ 75 a bottle, which is really going head to head with the big guns.  Were they worth it?  No but I don’t think that many wines priced at £75 are anyway!  Are they on a par with the most prestigious European wines in terms of quality.  Well, yes, I think that they are and they’re certainly as good as Penfolds Grange, which is now obscenely expensive (£130+ a bottle the last time I looked)

So, to address the biggest, smelliest elephant in the room, what the hell are the Chileans going to do about Carmenere?  They’d pinned their flag to the mast on this grape, putting it forward as their riposte to Malbec from Argentina.  The problem is that Malbec is a better grape!  Apart from the awesome Purple Angel from Montes, I was disappointed with 100% Carmenere – often green, unripe, lacking in fruit definition, wobbly acidity, over extracted and even (the crime of all crimes!) boring.  Its real strength lies in a turbo-powered blending grape, usually in association with either Cabernet or Syrah.  It then produces big, sweet, very fruit driven and highly pleasurable wines that really sing on the palate.  It’s a big ask for the Chileans to back down on their ‘special’ grape but, unless they can get their s**t together with this grape, they look to be backing the wrong horse.  If the Chinese swallow the PR hype, then the grape could be doomed, left with an appalling reputation, but the wineries will be more than adequately compensated by huge sales!  Can the Chileans resist the short-term temptation and play the long game instead?  Watch this space, folks!

Chile and, thankfully, the UK have both taken a big step forward in wine over the last decade.  We both expect better wines with clear, fresh fruit characteristics and well defined, varietal flavours, all delivered at a sensible price.  Chile can do this and much more whilst the UK consumer appreciates ever better wines.  The future looks very good indeed for wine drinkers in the UK…assuming that we can sort out Greece (then Italy, Portugal and Spain), rescue the Euro, reform the European Union, stabilise the banks, reform our investment strategies, attain food security again, guarantee energy supplies for the next decade and a few other trifles en route.  Should be a snip!

“Mad dogs and Englishmen” as Noel Coward so memorably wrote but, in my case, it wasn’t about going out in the midday sun but striking out solo in Chile without being able to speak a word of Spanish…what was I thinking of?  My friends from the Wines of Chile trip departed back to Blighty on Saturday 28^th Jan, gradually recovering from visiting the very funky area of Bellavista in Santiago until the wee small hours on Friday, drinking good Patagonian beer and listening to buskers doing excellent Del-Tones covers!  I accompanied my wino friends to the airport and, when they headed for the check in, I set off to the car rental area.  I was soon squashed inside a Chevrolet ‘Spark’ 1.2, listening to the mechanics screeching with laughter. As mentioned before, I am 6’2” and the Spark is the size of a dustbin.  To be honest, it drives like one too.  Do you remember the clowns at the circus who used to be stuffed inside a tiny car that regularly lost its doors, roof and passengers whilst the engine blew up in showers of pyrotechnic smoke?  Ok, now you get the general idea.

So, like Captain Kirk, I boldly set off with no idea at all as to where I was going.  The car rental had offered me a GPS but I despise these Satanic baubles.  Unfortunately, the car rental firm did not supply any maps in their cars.  Grrrrrrrr!  I launched the car into the stream of traffic on Santiago’s ring road and, luckily, spotted a sign for Valpariso within the first few km…but in my rear mirror.  A few hair raising moments later and I had reversed direction and was now heading off to the coast.

Some background: Santiago is the capital of Chile, situated in the Central Valley but much nearer to the Andes than the sea.  Valpariso is the main harbour, freight depot and Navy base.  Santiago tries to be posh, affluent and urbane.  Valpariso is unashamedly working class, gritty and “in yer face”.  I had been told that Valpariso was fine during the day (Chile is generally a very safe country to travel in and the Police have an excellent reputation) but it can get flaky at night, especially for a numptie like me who doesn’t know the lingo and has no way of telling what the fumpf is kicking off!  I compromised by arranging to stay at a B&B in Vina del Mar, a more up-market seaside resort situated only a few kms along the coast from Valpariso.  The two areas are connected by an excellent new metro, a cheap and frequent bus service (driven by wannabe F1 petrolheads) and taxis that looked to have been constructed with lump hammers.  My shiny, little Chevvy was out of its depth!

Carefully picking my way through the traffic, like the scene in Finding Nemo when Marlyn has to rescue Dory from the shoal of jellyfish, I arrived in Vina del Mar in one piece.  To be fair, the standard of driving in Chile is generally good (better than all of Italy, for instance, and considerably better than Paris) but, as in all cities, the aggression and ‘volatility’ increases in direct proportion to the number of cars per square metre!  I soon found my self at the door of the Hotel Genross in ‘downtown’ VdM.  This is a delightful B&B run by Brian (Canadian) and his charming wife, Lea (Chilean).  Brian had set off from Canada 42 years ago to travel around the world but he stepped off the boat at Valpariso, met Lea and fell head over heels for her.  Travel abandoned, Brian wooed his dream girl and settled down to a life of domestic bliss …well, that’s what he told me!  What a lovely story.

I was the only person booked into the Genross. “Why so”, I hear you cry, “during this main holiday season?”  Well, the Chileans mainly go on holiday in February but the Argentinians (yes, them again) prefer January.  VdM was packed with Argentinian tourists, mainly from Mendoza on the other side of the Andes.  The Argentinian peso is soaring in value (how can this be when they were bankrupt only a decade ago?) and it’s cheaper for them to visit Chile than travel and stay in Buenos Aires.  Unfortunately, the lot that had come over to Chile seemed to be more machismo and pikey (bad haircuts, football tops and a pimp strut) than the Chileans that I had been dealing with!  The Genross doesn’t have any TV’s, doesn’t allow loud music and definitely doesn’t want the Carabineros turning up in a riot van to stop late night parties that have got out of hand!  That was why I was the only person staying.   The compensation for this situation was an excellent and wide-ranging conversation with Brian and Lea over a bottle of wine in the evening, followed by delicious fruit, straight out of their garden, for breakfast.  VdM didn’t take long to ‘explore’ so Sunday morning saw me jump on the new Metro and head off to Valpariso.

The terminal for the Metro is the old port area so, within minutes of leaving the station, I was watching pelicans scooping up sardines by the beak load, gannets plummeting towards the sea like feathery dive bombers and sleek, menacing sea lions swimming in between the fishing boats.  I sat back and thought of Scarborough, idly comparing the pro’s and con’s of these two world famous coastal resorts.  Approximately one second later, I had decided this tricky issue and turned back to face the sparkling Pacific Ocean whilst the sun shone down from a clear blue sky, pelicans posed for my amusement, laughing families strolled by and the delicious smell of fresh seafood empanadas wafted across from the market stalls.

I spent the rest of the day tramping up and down the streets of Valpariso and, yes, I did use the factor 50 (total block) suncream, thank goodness.  Normally, factor 15 does the job for me but I would have been lobster red and probably in hospital, coming from a dull UK summer, autumn and winter into the blazing sun of South America.   I took a few rides on the famous ‘ascencores’ (funicular railways), which took the strain out of getting ‘up’, and generally just wandered around being nosey.  Several hours and many litres of water later, hobbling on aching feet, I threw myself into the shower at the B&B and enjoyed the luxury of a stone cold shower.

Monday morning meant it was time to ‘do some business’, if you’ll pardon the expression, so I waved adios to Brian and Lea before pointing the mutant car to the East, back towards the Andes and Vina San Esteban.  We supply wines from VsE under the In Situ and Rio Alto labels.  Once again, navigating by ready reckoning and a map of the wine regions of Chile supplied by one of the wineries, I charged off like Don Quixote.  Approximately 40 kms later, the main road decided to say goodbye (due to a land dispute over access through farmland) and I was diverted onto minor roads without any signs or information. Needless to say, none of the roads or villages en route appeared on my not very detailed map of places where you will find grapes.  “Oh, bugger it” covers this situation.  I drove on in the general direction of San Esteban (if you had followed my route on Google map, it would have resembled Harry Potter’s scar) and, hugely impressively in my opinion, arrived on time and relatively unstressed.

I was met by Yves, a lovely chap from Belgium, who had (yes, you’ve guessed it) married a local girl and then decided to raise a family in Chile, then joined by the extreme suave and polished owner/manager of Vina San Esteban, the delightful Horacio.  I was given a tour of the estate by 4 wheel drive as a lot of the grapes are grown on very rugged hillsides.  VsE has a Sancerre like outcrop on its land, right next to the Aconcagua River – the estate has flat alluvial, sandy land by the river, then colluvial clay at the base of the hill and finally very high quality ‘eroded’ granite and basalt on the hill itself.  This allows them to use the wide range of soils with specific grape varieties and with different exposures to the sun, canopy management techniques and even irrigation methods.  VsE has some of the highest vineyards in Chile at 970 metres – still low by Argentinian standards (which can go up past 1500 m) but this does mean that the much vaunted river valley effect is muted here. The main determinant of temperature, especially at night, is altitude. The river is important but mainly as a source of water, not micro-climate. The effect of the markedly cool nights is to give a long ‘hang-time’ for the grapes, allowing softer and more rounded red wines.  The grapes are always perfectly ripe and the tannins are soft and very creamy.  These are excellent, more nuanced wines and very pleasurable to drink, especially with food.  VsE pick perfectly ripe grapes, especially Carmenere, every year without any hassle. The fruit is ripe, soft and very juicy…and so is the wine!  By contrast, lots of ‘hot shot’ Chilean winemakers complain about their Carmenere grapes as they are always the last to be harvested (mid to end of April) and can still be slightly green and unripe.  That, to be honest, is about as tough as it gets for them so I doubt that they will get any sympathy whatsoever from European vignerons.  Anyway, we’ve all tasted red wines like that so you know what I mean about this hard, acidic flavour in the wine.  VsE just don’t have that ‘off note’ in any of their wines.

One of the highlights of the tour around VsE’s vineyards was the Inca rock carvings, situated on the hill that I described earlier.  These are in excellent condition and have been allowed to stay ‘in situ’ (get it?) rather than dug up and put in a museum.  The remoteness of the site plus the security (more of that later) at the winery allows them to be enjoyed as always intended by their makers.

The most jaw-dropping bit of info that I obtained from this visit to VsE was about the local weather.  I noticed that the estate reservoir was very low and I idly asked when it would be refilled.  The summer has been so dry that the towns/industries downstream of VsE have asked for more water so the estate has reduced its water holding.  “When will you get more rain?” I asked Horacio, realising that this was actually one of the more sensible questions that I had managed to deliver.  He replied that it had last rained in August (five months ago!) and that was only some light rain for four days.  They might not get any substantial amount of rain until the end of April or May.  Bloody hell!  I have spent the last two summers in Devon trying to find four days, preferably over a weekend, without rain so I could take my kids camping.  I think that Horacio’s answer explained, in a nutshell, how important the main rivers and new dams up in the Andes are to the continued prosperity of Chile.

After a very detailed and enjoyable wine tasting (more of that in Part 3…hmmm, I feel a part 4 coming on), I was escorted to the hacienda and shown to a very simple but elegant bedroom.  Wooden shuttered windows looked onto immaculate lawns, a swimming pool and a wonderful garden full of grapefruit, palms and bougainvilleas.  I had originally asked to visit VsE at the weekend but they replied that Monday was the earliest that they could manage.  My initial reaction (and I’m not very proud of this) was “too lazy to get their butts out of the hammock” or some other stereotypical reaction of that ilk. It turned out that the hacienda is their traditional family home and the previous weekend had seen grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins etc all gathered at the hacienda for a weekend of fine food, conversation and lots of family fun.  Yet another point in Chile’s favour, eh?

I was also greeted by two huge and robust Alsatians who were very playful.  However, I was warned to take everything that I might need into the hacienda now as the dogs were released at night and it was ‘inadvisable’ to wander around afterwards.  I pointed out that the dogs had been very friendly, they would recognise my scent and that I was here as a guest.  The reply quickly came “ah, that’s only during the daytime.  Different rules apply at night!”  Righty-ho, I thought, promptly unloading the contents of the Spark into my room…I should have saved time just by picking it up and taking the whole damn thing inside under my arm.

I was then taken out to a madly eccentric Chilean restaurant, called “La Ruta”, to enjoy some Mapuche food.  The Mapuche tribe were dominant in Central Chile and gave the Incas a sound thrashing in a spectacularly gruesome battle, stopping the Inca expansion to the South at the Maule River.  That’s worthy of some respect as the Incas were a very assertive culture and didn’t like people saying no to them!  The restaurant itself was a cross between a flea market, a heritage museum, a cultural centre and a biker’s bar…I said it was eccentric!  However, the kitchen was spotless and the people who owned the restaurant were very kind and generous. The food was meat orientated: juicy black puddings, highly spiced pork mega-sausages and miscellaneous (unidentified) bits of sheep as big as a Jack Russell.  Hey, now that I come to think about it…?  After eating top quality seafood, fruit and salads since my arrival in Chile, this was a hammer blow!  I should have expected it, of course, as it’s proper mountain food and you’ll find similar cuisine in high altitude locations such as Piedmonte or the Pyrenees.  After such a mammoth intake of dead stuff, I was grateful to be driven back to the hacienda and collapse in my bed, safe from the fangs of the vampire guard dogs.

The next morning (and thank you, Yves and Horacio, for the pukka coffee), I turned South and drove back towards Santiago for the last time.  The road contoured along the foothills of the Andes and I was captivated by the wonderful scenery that I passed through.  It was stark and barren: tall cacti and thin, miserable scrub were the typical vegetation on the mountains, yet some splashes of cultivation and colour did occasionally leap out.  Olive groves were dotted here and there whilst, in small valleys that had managed to retain the last of the water, you would see peaches, table grapes and maize being grown. This was subsistence farming by the locals, not anything on a commercial basis and definitely not available for export!

All too soon, I was back in the traffic of Santiago and gratefully dumped my ‘Spark’ back at the airport.  I think they were quite impressed to get it back undamaged.  Then again, as I said at the outset, I don’t speak Spanish so they might well have been telling me that my sweaty gringo derriere had rotted away the stitching in the upholstery of the driver’s chair.  Who knows, eh?  So, spit-spot, back on the plane and up, up and away for yet another acutely painful flight back to England and the welcoming embrace of my family.

That’s Part 2, folks, so stand by for the next, more rational, instalment on my trip to Chile, which will cover terroir (yawn) and notes on some of the best wines that I tasted.

The last blog announcing my change of job could have been misread (by the cynics amongst you) to imply that I had taken up life as a ‘gentleman of the road’, as the euphemism would have it, and spending my days in the harrassment of publicans/restauranteurs for free drinks.  I can assure you that:

i) I am not living out of any cardboard boxes…but let’s revisit that issue in 6 months time if I haven’t achieved my sales targets!

ii) I don’t claim to be cuddly but I’m not too scary either.  I can, however, crank out a very creditable impression of ‘Angry Dad’ to any child that’s reckless enough to misbehave when I’m nearby.

iii) if you are going to put temptation in my path in the form of a drink, I’m partial to Rhône reds, Gruner Veltliner and Islay malts, not super-strength cider!

So, have we cleared that up?

Moving on, I am away to Chile on Saturday 21/02 as part of a tour organised by those wonderful people at Wines of Chile.  Sarah in our office actually did all the graft and won the trip to Chile as a ‘prize’ but she decided not to go, mainly because she’s a (cough, choke, splutter) lager drinker!  I leapt at the opportunity to go instead so I am off for a avalanche of tastings (three wineries per day) from Limari in the North down to Curico/Maule in the South.  I don’t go as far South as Bio-Bio, unfortunately, due to the lack of time.  Too many flights, too many long bus journeys!  I am then visiting Valpariso and Leyda for a couple of days before heading back up to Aconcagua to do some extra research into organic wineries.  I’ll be back at work on 02/02, fighting off jet lag, and will start blogging away about what Chile has to offer.  It won’t just be lots of boring stuff about wine either, I promise.  Watch this space!