Week 41
Day 282
Cusco Peru
13.5250° S, 71.9722° W
We’re working our way North and are in Peru now, but had a blast during our 2 weeks with my Mom and Dad in Chile.
The Highlight of Chile was definitely seeing and catching up with my Mom and Dad, but I’m sure we’d all agree the best thing we did in Chile was wine taste.
We decided to stick with the Casablanca region as it enabled us to stay on the coast and take short day trips to taste.
The best reds are known to come from the Maipo Valley a little south, but most wineries we hit all offered Carménère and Cabernet Sauvignon with grapes from Maipo so we didn’t really miss out.
Wine tasting in Chile is a little costly. Often times tasting fees would be more than a bottle of wine! But it was always a great experience.
Wineries do a great job with presentation. Glasses would be set out ahead of time, our group always had a private sommelier, and the pours were often very generous.
Within the two weeks, we basically hit up every winery in the valley.
Here’s how they stacked up:
8. Casas Del Bosque
Tasting Fee: $10000 Chilean Pesos (About $20) For the Family Tasting
4 Pours
(They Also offer a premium tasting with only 3 wines that is $15000)
Casas del Bosque while not a horrible experience was definitely my least favorite.
This winery definitely felt the most commercial to me.
While good, the wines were our least favorite as well.
The sommelier asked us whether we’d prefer reds or whites with our tasting. We said red and he still gave us 2 whites / 2 reds. Looking at the website it appears that we never really had a choice, which would have been fine had he not offered.
The property was nice, but as all the properties were it didn’t give the winery a huge boost.
The final bummer of the tasting was where our tasting took place.
The winery has a HUGE room with a fireplace and tables, but they walked us past this and placed us in a cold terrace on a rainy day. My attitude may have been different if I wasn’t freezing during our visit.
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7. Bodegas Re
Tasting Fee $18000 CLP (about $36 USD)
4 Pours
Bodegas Re was actually a REALLY cool winery, but WAY over priced and the wines were only so-so which is why I’m ranking them so low.
Their specialty is blends which means they had some pretty unique wines.
This was the only winery where we didn’t do our own tastings. Since it was so expensive each couple shared a tasting, which allowed us to taste 5 wines as each couple had a different final pour to round out the tasting.
Overall we got to try their Pinotel, Re Chardonnoir, Re Velado, Re Cabergnan, and Vineyard Red.
The Velado was an interesting wine. It was actually made by mistake. During a recent Earthquake their barrels were cracked. They thought that years harvest would be completely lost, but were pleasantly surprised that they had created a new way to age the wine when they discovered a “veil of yeast” on the top had protected the wine. They are currently trying to duplicate this production on purpose now. [one_half]
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While it was fun to try all the rare blends, I can’t say any were amazing. They weren’t bad but none stick out in my mind.
The best part of this winery was the atmosphere. We got a tour of their cellar and that was pretty spectacular.
They blend the grapes in clay barrels before transferring them to oak and it was fun to see this.
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6. Veramonte
Tasting Fee $7500 CLP (about $15 USD)
4 Pours
Veramonte was the first winery we hit up.
We were a little shocked at how spendy the tasting fee was, but little did we know this would be the cheapest one we’d do.
We tasted their Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Malbec (the grapes come from Mendoza), and Carménère.
There is no real reason for it’s low ranking on my list other than the overall experience just didn’t compare to some of the later ones.
The Veramonte wines were some of my favorite as I really enjoyed all 3 reds, specifically the Carménère and Malbec which both were very peppery. 🙂
5. Indomita
Tasting Fee $12000 CLP (about $25 USD)
4 Pours
We almost skipped Indomita.
You can’t miss it driving through Casablanca because of their big sign on the hill and because of that we felt that it would be a tourist trap.
That being said, I’m glad we hit it up on our last day.
The view is gorgeous and the tasting while a little spendy had some good wines.
We tasted the Chardonnay, Syrah, and Carménère from the Duette Line as well as the Zardoz blend which is named after the movie. My favorite was the Zardoz…not just for the story.
4. Matetic
Tasting Fee $7500 CLP (about $15 USD)
5 Pours
Perhaps another slightly more commercial Winery, Matetic would have certainly stacked higher had the next wineries not been so amazing!
We tasted their Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Maker’s Blend, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon.
My personal favorite was the Syrah, but my mom really like the Pinot here.
Our sommelier wasn’t too attentive. She poured the wines, quickly explained them and then hurried off which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it was nice to be able to just sit and enjoy our tasting.
The grounds at Matetic were gorgeous and we lucked out with a beautiful sunny day so it was nice to sit on the terrace in the sun and enjoy our tasting.
3. William Cole
Tasting Fee $10000 CLP (about $20 USD)
3 Pours
William Cole was the last tasting we did and I’m so glad we didn’t miss this winery.
The tasting room was a little chilly, but it had an awesome vibe to it. You felt like you were sitting in a Wine Cellar.
We got to taste their Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir.
The wines were very good, my favorite being their Pinot. It was a very full bodied Pinot and very different from the other Pinots we’d tasted over the week.
2. Errazuriz
Max Reserva Tasting Fee $10000 CLP (about $20 USD)
4 Pours + 2 Bonus Pours
Coming in right behind Emiliana was Viña Errazuriz .
The property was spectacular, but so was the tasting experience.
We tasted their Chardonnay, Carménère, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Besides having great wines, they also provided a very generous portion of crackers and CHEESE! (Many wineries provide crackers but no other ones except Bodegas RE provide cheese.)
We also got to taste the Don Maximiano from their Icon wines which was amazing–the Max Reservas were good but couldn’t compare to this Icon Wine!
Another nice thing about Viña Errazuriz was the sommelier we had poured herself full tasting glasses but couldn’t drink them all as she was working, so we got some bonus tasting! 😉
The one bummer about Viña Errazuriz is it isn’t in the Casablanca Valley. To get to it, you need to drive to the San Felipe Valley which is about 90 minutes away. There is a second winery up there called Viña von Siebenthal but it isn’t open on Sunday (The day we went)
1. Emiliana
Tasting Fee: $10000 Chilean Pesos (about $20)
Pours: Officially 4 but we had at least an additional 3-4
It was hard to pick #1 between Emiliana and Errazuriz, but ultimately Emiliana wins for me.
The tasting was officially their Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Carménère, and Syrah but we also got to taste the Carménère Reserve and Cabernet Sauvignon (and perhaps a few I don’t remember… :/ )
My favorite here was their Carménère, but I really enjoyed all their wines with theirs tying with Veramonte for my favorite wines of the trip. (the icon Errazuriz was pretty darn good too!)
Our sommelier was very friendly and knowledgeable as well as allowed us to taste many of the wines that aren’t typically offered during a normal tasting.
We always buy bottles and in this case the extra wines he allowed us to taste ended up being the bottles that we bought, so had he not been as accommodating we would have missed out on some great wines.
On top of great service, Emiliana’s wine farm was one of my favorites as well.
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The property had a country farm feel to it, with Lavender growing around the building and chickens and pigeons roaming the ground.
Inside had a fire going and a warm log cabin feel which was perfect for the rainy day we visited.
To finish this post I also have to mention the amazing Wine Restaurants we went to.
While there are many Vineyards that have restaurants in Casablanca, I highly recommend going to Macerado!
The food was some of the best that I had in Chile–Next to my Dad’s cooking of course!
The other Restaurant I would recommend is in Santiago.
We hit up Bocanáriz Vino Bar our first night in town and it was so good we went back another day for lunch.
Our dinners were amazing, but my favorite part of the meal was the wine flights we did accompanied with a meat plate, cheese plate, and mediterranean plate for an appetizer.
The atmosphere was also amazing. Our favorite room was the front one with the cork screw wall we sat in when we went back for lunch!
What winery looked the best to you?
Leave us a comment below and let us know what you think! 🙂
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