Today we had our second company visit. This time we hopped on a bus to Viña Indomita, a vineyard and restaurant just outside of Santiago. The view was gorgeous from the winery and restaurant atop a large hill. Our tour guide was very charismatic, and I was again struck by how many Chileans seem to know English well enough to converse with us extensively.
He first told us about the different varieties of grapes that they grow and some ways that they protect the vines during the winters and prevent diseases from spreading. I thought it was interesting that they keep rose bushes scattered about the property because they are weaker and will show signs of a plague first as well as attract the destructive insects away from the more important grapes.
He then took us on a tour of the inside of the facility where they actually produce and age the wine. It smelled very strongly of grapes the moment we stepped into the building, but I did not mind the aroma. He explained how they extract the juice from the grapes without crushing the skins because that would release tannins, the compound that makes your mouth dry, into the finished wine. He told us all about the fermentation process and how each wine has a certain amount of time that it must remain in the large stainless steel tanks for an exact amount of time in order to produce the perfect balance of sweetness and alcohol. I found it interesting that the processes for making red and white wines are so different. He then showed us the large wooden barrels where they age the wine for up to two years so that the finished product contains a complex range of flavors and aromas.
Our guide also told us about the regulation of the wine industry by the Chilean government. Apparently the winery is legally restricted to one harvest per year in order to keep the quality of the wine coming out of Chile very high. This contrasts other countries in Latin America like Brazil, where they are allowed to have up to three harvests in one year.
Next we drove to Isla Negra, where the famous poet Pablo Neruda once lived. We ate a delicious lunch at the restaurant next to his house (which has been preserved and can be toured). After lunch we walked through his house and saw how he lived and learned about his life and works via an audio tour. He was a very interesting man who loved the sea and modeled his home on a ship. The view from his bedroom was an absolutely gorgeous panorama of the beach and ocean which I cannot even imagine waking up to each morning.
We ended our day with a final salsa class. This was my favorite one because we also learned some reggaeton and popular dances in different countries. We learned one dance that was very similar to the electric slide that I liked a lot. We did not end up getting back to the hotel until around ten o'clock, and we were all exhausted. I am looking forward to the two free days we have this weekend to catch up on some much-needed sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment