Vina del Mar

We arrived at the Santiago airport to find that Bryan had arranged to have a car pick us up and drive us to Viña instead of taking a bus. Nice start to the week. The drive is about an hour and 45 min and winds through the Casablanca wine region and out to the coast. We arrived just in time for sunset over the Pacific from the balcony in the Rees’ ocean front condo. Bryan made his famous homemade Pisco Sours and we enjoyed the evening. Viña del Mar is a weekend getaway ocean front / beach town for Santiago. It’s a fairly decent sized town on its own and has several neighboring towns which line the coast north and south. To the south is Valparaiso, the largest port in Chile and as well as being the town where Mrs. Rees grew up. Tonight we drove north up to Reñaca to Aqui Jaime, Bryan’s favorite seafood restaurant in the area. The coastal road looks like it is an extension of Highway 1 in California; winding single lane road along stunning shoreline. Jaime is known for two things, amazing fresh sea and a beautiful Cliffside setting; oh and live entertainment. The entertainment comes from an incredibly concentrated old fellow hunched over his keyboard cranking out tunes that would do the organist at any hockey game proud. First up Machas. Machas are razor clams and are served with the foot on, in the shell, baked with parmesan cheese and a little bit of cream. They are Bryan’s favorite and he and Charlie devoured the “first” plate in no time. Rawson actually got to try one or two. Another menu item that stood out were the Erizos, or Sea Urchin. It was listed in the main course section of the menu and anyone who has had sushi with Charlie knows his fondness for the Uni. Apparently sea urchin is local to Chile and most of it is shipped to Japan. We ordered a serving to see how it compared, and out came a huge plate full of raw Erizos. Needless to say Charlie was in Uni Heaven. This portion would have gone for about $150-200 in our local sushi restaurant back in San Francisco. The equivalent in Chilean pesos was about $11.

Tuesday was an organizational day. We hit the grocery store to stock up for the week, did laundry, finally, etc. We picked up groceries for cooking as the Rees’ helper was coming for the day and as is traditional with most Chilean families, she makes several meals for the week while she is there. “Fresia”
is an amazingly sweet little lady whipped up a couple of nice meals for us with the groceries we picked up. No bell required. We had a nice lunch at the Rees’ and just rejuvenated. Wednesday we were up early in order to get an jump start as we headed to the Colchagua wine region, about 2 ½ hours away south of Santiago (4+ from Viña). We had a few wineries we wanted to visit. Colchagua is known for its Carmenere. The Carmenere grape had thought to have been lost in the Phylloxera plague in France in 1867. Then in 1994 it was rediscovered in Chile being served as a Merlot. We were off to find the best Carmenere in Colchagua. Casa Silva was our first stop. This bodega also has a lovely B&B and restaurant. We checked out the rooms, (not in our budget but lovely), and decided to have a little lunch and try their wines. We sat in a gorgeous courtyard with the sun shining down on us. Ahh, just what the doctor ordered. We loved the Carmenere,( our favorite so far), loved the Syrah, but the Merlot not so much. There was more to see and the weather was perfect. We headed next door to Casa Helena, but alas they don’t offer wine tastings. So we went back to Casa Silva to do a proper tasting in their winery, but they also don’t offer tastings. Hmmm, have wine, won’t serve it? As we found in Argentina, Chile wine tasting is not like California wine tasting. First it’s about the tour. Most of the wineries have state of the art facilities and they want to show it off. Also, the wine tasting culture hasn’t really taken off down here like it has up north. We hit a few road blocks along our way, but finally hit up Viu Manent. Upon parking we were hailed by two northern California ladies in distress. Their car battery had died while they were tasting and they had a flight in 4 hours home out of Santiago. The winery had some jumper cables and Charlie and Bryan gave them a quick jump and they were off. Now back to Paula and our perfect tasting. We tried several wines but the Secreto Carmenere 2008 was all of our favorite. One more for today before things shut down. Viña Montes was opened till 5:30 so we headed that direction. Stunning property and the wines were decent to great. Their Montes Alpha Chardonnay 2007 won the Slow Food #1 Chardonnay in the world. Rawson really liked this one. The Montes Alpha Syrah 2006 won two big stars from our crowd! The sun was starting down and we got some nice shots at the winery. We drove the rest of the way into the main town in the Colchagua valley, Santa Cruz, to find a place to stay for the night. We found a hostel on the main road, decided it was fine and we were ready to clean up and grab dinner. Just outside of town was a Peruvian restaurant that we’d read about and had recommended by Paula from earlier in the day. We almost couldn’t find it, but are glad we finally did. We sat next to the wood burning stove and enjoyed our delicious meal primarily of ceviches.

Thursday we planned to hit Concha y Torro and Casa la Postalle, but sadly neither offer tastings. Just driving around to discover this took us most of the day. The valley is lovely but we were unsuccessful and just headed back to Viña to catch the sunset.

Beautiful day on Friday, so we enjoyed relaxing in Viña. Saturday we drove north to see the Pacific coastal similarities between California and Chile. We arrived to our lunch spot to find that there was no availability until 10PM (Easter weekend is HUGE in Latin America). Stunning views and apparently really good seafood. Oh well, on to the next restaurant which we were able to strong arm a table. Apparently in many Chilean restaurants (not so in metropolis’ but more rural) there is no hostess and you just vulture over tables scoping out who is leaving before elbowing other vultures out of the way to grab a spot. OK, not that drastic or vicious, but the method is pretty close. Once we had landed at our table, we sat overlooking a bay with nearly perfect weather eating (what else) lots of Machas! We found our way back to Viña in time for the sunset once again.

Easter Sunday we went just south of Viña to Valparaiso, the old port town where Bryan’s mother grew up. Valparaiso is much like San Francisco as it is set among the seaside hills. The homes here are also colorful and look like candies sprinkling the hillsides. The difference is that while San Francisco has stairs in their sidewalks, Valparaiso has funiculars, like a sidewalk elevator, all over the city for carrying people up and down. The closest thing to this would be a gondola that runs on tracks. Or for you Bond-fans, they had one in Octopussy. We did a bit of sightseeing here to get the flavor and history. Then we stopped for lunch and took in the views (yes, more Machas were included in this meal). Tomorrow we drive back to Santiago and catch our flight to Morocco (via Madrid).

We spent a total of 3 weeks traveling around Chile and Argentina with Bryan. We can’t say enough about this time. We had a ball and he was the best host anyone could ask for. We were able to see and learn things about Chile that only the locals know. We also know things about each other we may rather not know after 3 weeks together, but we’ll leave those details out of the blog. Bry we can’t wait to see you in San Francisco, if not before! Thanks for everything, best man!