Tom and I made an agreement before moving to Chile that the weekends would be about us. Which meant absolutely, under no circumstances, would there be work done on the weekends. Our weekends would be about spending time together and exploring our new home. So far we’ve done an excellent job sticking to our promise. Tom works so hard during the week to make our dream a reality and I do my best to help him, so when the weekends roll around we really try to make the best of them.

So here’s to one recent weekend activity that added a little spice to our otherwise AWESOME life :o)

A few weekends ago (I’ve actually only been in Chile for a month even though it feels like I’ve been here forever) we took the amazing metro to a famous Chilean winery just outside the city. Since I’ve been here, I’ve often thought that if Los Angeles and New York had a baby, Santiago would be the result. Santiago is a charming mix of old, stately skyscrapers and urban sprawl. The architecture is reminiscent of old New York but the expansive suburban layout is very obviously Los Angeles. And as is the case with many cities, including Los Angeles, the downtown area has an air of bustling importance

while the urban sprawl reminds one of a past forgotten.

Stepping off the metro in Puente Alto felt like stepping into another country; a poorer country certainly, but also a country more willing to enjoy a simpler albeit more challenging life.

out here they are just being kids.

Once off the metro in Puente Alto we took a quick taxi to the nearby winery. Concha Y Torro is the largest distributor of wine in South America, founded in 1883 by Don Melchor, it has become famous for its Carménère grape which was believed to be extinct.

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In 1883 Don Melchor bought a variety of grapes from the Bordeaux region of France. The grapes included Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Merlot, and Carménère. Throughout the years as the vineyard changed owners, the Carménère grape was thought to have been lost until it was rediscovered in 1994 at a most opportune time. In 1867 a Phylloxera plague destroyed the Carménère grape and it was believed to be extinct. No one knew or remembered that it had ever been grown outside of the Bordeaux region of France. Unbeknownst to the owners of Concha Y Toro, they had been harvesting the grape along with the Merlot grape believing that the Carménère was simply a variation of the Merlot grape. The differences between Chilean Merlot and Merlot produced in France were certainly noticible (the Chilean version was nearly 50% Carménère), but it was not until Professor Jean-Michel Boursiquot studied the mysterious vine in 1994 that Carménère was “reborn”. Now Chile and Concha Y Toro are famous for their Carménère wine which is found in very few other places around the world. Because of Chile’s natural borders, this precious grape was able to escape the devastating disease that deprived the world of delicious Carménère wine for nearly 130 years.  

So, of course, we had to try some :o)

It was pretty delicious. Of course I cannot tell the difference between Carménère and Merlot, I’m no wine expert (and, of course, even they couldn’t tell the difference). But maybe this guys can

He seems right at home in a room full of casks. Here’s Tom romancing the wine ;o)

Part of the tour was a look into the famous Concha Y Toro cellar known as “Casillero Del Diablo” or “the Devil’s cellar”.

As the legend goes, Don Melchor began noticing that casks of his most expensive wine were continually going missing. Perplexed, he investigated the matter and discovered that the local townspeople were sneaking into his cellars and rolling away barrels of his precious wine. Knowing that the townspeople were both very Catholic and very superstitious, he began circulating a rumor that the Devil lived in one of his wine cellars. The rumor worked like a charm and he never lost another cask of wine again. To this day the cellar houses the most expensive wines and is called Casillero Del Diablo. 

After the wine tour we relaxed on the patio and treated ourselves to a little more wine and cheese! Delicious cheese :)

Before boarding the metro and making our way back home, we took a walk around Puente Alto. In an earlier post I mentioned that Santiago was not at all what I expected it to be. I didn’t explain that well, so I’m going to attempt to do that now.

I have not done much travelling in South America outside of a trip earlier this year to Colombia, so I think I made the same mistake that many America’s make which is that South America looks like Mexico, or more specifically like the poor parts of Mexico that most American’s are familiar with due to it’s recent prominence in the news on the drug wars (please don’t misunderstand, there are parts of Mexico that are gorgeous). I think it is a real shame that we have all but written South America off as the ugly step-sister to the shiny, modern North America. Because the 70s, 80s, and 90s were filled with images of drug wars, corrupt governments, and poverty stricken people, South America has been unable to shed it’s ugly albeit distant past. The South America that I have come to know (and this absolutely includes Colombia) is beautiful, modern, and safe. These are not third world countries and there is not a drug lord waiting around every corner to jump out and kidnap Americans. There are parts that are poorer and less modern which is the case in every country, and in Santiago Puente Alto is one of these places. So, before I came to Chile, with no idea of what it looked like, I fell into what I’m going to call “the Nixon trap”(since he was the one who coined the term “war on drugs” and began indoctrinating Americans with the idea that South America was an incurably evil, drug infested country).

Because I didn’t want to get my hopes up about a place I’d never seen before and because I was going to have to make it my home whether I liked it or not, I set my expectations pretty low. Meaning I thought that Santiago was going to look like this

                                              (Puente Alto)

Instead of this. 

                                   (Downtown Santiago)

Which would have been fine, of course, but perhaps now it’s a bit clearer as to why I am so absolutely delighted with my new city :) I just love pleasant surprises. 

The trip to the winery was a wonderful little excuse to get out of the city, see a bit of the “country”, and enjoy some good wine. It made me appreciate the beauty and stateliness of Santiago proper, and it gave me a broader view of what life outside Chile’s modern epicenter is like. I cannot say often enough how much I love Chile. It is beautiful, unique, modern and it teaches me something new every day. I hope that eventually it will be able to wash off the stain that our government broadcast for so many years and that people will try to understand South America and Chile for what it is now instead of what it once was. If we, as Americans, continue to look at the world through eyes that wear “media colored glasses”, we will miss out on making journeys and discovering places that have the ability to transform us.

                                 (Colombia, February 2011)