a toast

In a few hours my pc will be taken to the ER and will hopefully be shortly returned to me in best shape! In the meantime I thought this blog should do something fun, like ... some wine tasting, why not? One major pleasure in life is to enjoy a good wine. Even better if it is a Chilean wine of course! While in Santiago, Chile, my parents, my sister and I visited a local winery (Concha y Toro) to enjoy a tour and a deligthful wine tasting. This is the entrance.

The garden is another delight and here you see an example of the Chilean palm , not just another palm tree but the country's very own Jubaea chilensis. This species has at times been called the "Incredible Hulk" of the palm world because of its massive diameters that reach to 1.5 meters| 5 feet or more and height that can reach to 30 m| 100 ft. More information here.

We first toured the impressive garden and walked to see the family's old summer residence built in 1875, not an ordinary sommer cottage! The home itself was not part of the tour, only what we could see from the garden.

Chile's climate has been described as midway between that of California and France. The most common grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carmenère. The wiki information is here and I was surprised to see they have posted a similar picture to the one I took, which you can see right below.

And then we proceeded to the wine tasting, three different kinds beginning with a white one graciously poured by Maximiliano, our guide. We were quite a few, as you can see from the number of glasses! He used three bottles for each degustation.

In the 19th century the founder of Concha y Toro discovered that his vineyard workers were sampling his greatest wines. To discourage this action, he started to spread the rumor that his deepest, darkest cellar was the Casillero del Diablo (Cellar of the Devil), so that no one would dare go in there. It worked, and a legend was born. Today, this mysterious and legendary cellar continues to hold the finest, estate grown wines of Casillero del Diablo. And it is accordingly decorated, as seen below (click to enlarge):

Cheers!!