Colorado in January: Blustery, snowy and cold! Chile in January:
Breezy, sunny and warm!
If you were an adventurous wine and food lover, which country
would sound better to you? In search of new wines, fresh cuisine
and lots of sun, we voted Chile and had a wonderful trip.
As proprietors of a specialty wine shop in Monument, we consider
it our mission (and our passion) to explore the world of wine so we
can better educate our eager, thirsty patrons.
The best way to really learn about new wines and indigenous
cuisine is to travel directly to the source and sample, sample,
sample.
After a very busy holiday season, we were more than ready for
some wine, food and fun – Chilean style.
Squeezed between the Andes and the Pacific, Chile is a
spaghetti-like strip of land. It is never more than 221 miles wide,
and its coastline extends over 2,700 miles.
Within its borders are the world’s driest desert, lush expanses
of forest, spectacular glaciers and very fertile valleys.
After a 15-hour flight, we arrived in Santiago, the capital of
Chile, and basked in the warm, radiant sunshine.
We had winery visits scheduled our first day in-country, so we
quickly gathered our bags, packed up our rental car and headed for
Vina Santa Ema, our first stop, in the heart of Chile’s oldest wine
region, the Maipo Valley.
Our visit to Vina Santa Ema was eagerly anticipated because we
have been avid consumers of their reserve merlot for many
years.
Santa Ema’s winery and wine style is decidedly modern. The wines
have ripe, rich berry fruit character with a supple, plush finish –
think mocha – from aging in small oak casks.
While some experts consider the Maipo Valley too warm for making
quality white wines, we found Santa Ema’s Sauvignon Blanc
particularly tasty. It had nice ripe citrus/melon fruit character
and mellow, supple finish – great by itself or with Chile’s
fabulous, fresh seafood.
Pleasantly sated, we ventured off to our next winery, Vina Santa
Alicia, only 50 miles away in Alto Maipo, in the foothills of the
Andes.
What we didn’t realize is that signs are notoriously lacking in
Chile and often covered up. What should have taken us only about 90
minutes turned out to take closer to three hours. (Little did we
know that this would become a familiar theme during our
visit.)
Santa Alicia’s timbered, European-style architecture was a
precursor to the rustic, traditional style of its wine.
Its reserve carmenere and shiraz stood out as excellent wines.
Bold and rich, they had hearty plum and cherry-like fruit character
with complex loamy, spicy notes that lingered – perfect for Chile’s
rich empanadas or cazuela, a Chilean beef stew.
From Santa Alicia, we went back to Santiago and spent a couple
of days exploring Chile’s capital city before venturing two hours
south to Colchagua Valley, the self-proclaimed “Napa Valley” of
Chile.
My favorite winery from Colchagua is Vina Montes. Its new
winery, finished in late 2004, holds state-of-the art technology,
equipment and design, and has the capacity for producing the
world’s finest wine.
Harmony is a great way to describe the quality and polished
character of Montes wines. We loved them all, but highlights
include its classic series Malbec, the limited selection cabernet
sauvignon/carmenere blend and Leyda Valley sauvignon blanc, and the
Alpha series cabernet and syrah.
All Montes wines are loaded with ripe, fruity character and
finish silky smooth from the judicious aging in small oak
barrels.
After a very tasty meal at a local Peruvian-style restaurant, we
went to Clos Apalta, the new showcase winery of Casa
Lapostolle.
Built and owned by a very wealthy French family, it is easily
the equal of Napa Valley’s Opus One estate. Chiseled out of the
side of a mountain for the measly sum of $15 million dollars or so,
it is a multi-story, gravity-fed winery that makes less than 4,000
cases of a super-premium, Carmenere-based wine called Clos
Apalta.
At more than $90 per bottle, it is one of Chile’s most expensive
wines and is comparable to many Napa or Bordeaux wines at that
price or more.
The freshness and concentrated flavors of all Chilean wines
definitely complemented their diverse, savory cuisine.
Prior to our visit, we had read in guide books that Chile wasn’t
acclaimed for its cuisine, but, at its best, the fresh meats and
summer produce proved to be quite tasty.
We started almost every meal with empanadas, a savory pastry
served either baked or fried. They were stuffed with a variety of
ingredients, from ground meat to cheese to mixed seafood.
We really enjoyed their parrillada, a mixed grill of beef steak,
sausages, grilled chicken and pork chops served in a small,
hibachi-like charcoal grill right in the middle of our
table.
Corn-based dishes are popular in summer, including humitas, a
Chilean tamale made from fresh grated sweet corn known in Chile as
choclo, not maize. (Maize is for animals.)
Unlike tamales from Central America, humitas don’t include meat
– just a little fresh basil, onions and chilies.
We also loved another corn-based dish called pastel de choclo, a
corn pie filled with beef, chicken, basil, onions, olives and
hard-boiled eggs.
In Chile, seafood is always available and very fresh. Caldillo
de congrio is a fish stew made from congrio, mistakenly called an
eel in Chile.
Actually, it is a fish known internationally as kingclip.
Congrio, with its springy white flesh, is also popular frito
(fried), when it is traditionally served with ensalada chilena, a
salad of sliced tomato and blanched onions.
Machas a la parmesana, razor clams with melted parmesan cheese,
was one of our favorite appetizers, always washed down with a
fresh, zesty Chilean sauvignon blanc.
Our experience with Chile’s cuisine was quite delicious and
worth trying to replicate.
If you love tasty food, great wine, a gorgeous climate and
friendly, inviting people, then it’s time to arrange a visit to
Chile, not as far away or as expensive as you might
think.
However, if a trip to Chile isn’t in your near travel plans,
then plan to join us March 12, for a special Chilean wine dinner at
MoZaic restaurant in Palmer Lake. We’ll share some distinctive
Chilean recipes paired with our favorite wines.
For more information about Chile or the wine dinner contact
Dirk Stamp at The Wine Seller in Monument at 719-488-3019 or
dirk@thewineseller.net.