A great day visiting three wineries. Fascinating to learn that they have a very different wine making process here in Chile. For many of their wines, they use concrete "eggs" during the fermentation process. Most wineries I've visited use stainless steel. And some wines are made using all of the grapes. Including stems. I'm only familiar with stems being used for making grappa.
Our first stop was Bodegas Re - a boutique winery preserving "old" methods for wine making including these clay pots. They put the grapes in whole and the weight of the grapes crushed them.
Our next visit was Casas del Bosque - a larger winery that exports to the US. We had a wonderful tour and wine tasting.
Had a fantastic lunch at Casas Del Bosque. Tasty tuna tartare, seared octopus, conger fish and squid ink ravioli. All paired with some of their delicious wines. One of the best seafood lunches I've ever had. The tuna had some dehydrated lime zest that really elevated the dish. And the squid ink ravioli was stuffed with shrimp and ginger, covered with a delicate bechamel. And the fish!! Perfectly cooked on a bed of saffron orzo.
After lunch, we visited Kingston - another small winery. They only make wine to showcase their grapes.
The next day we booked a hike in the Andes mountains. It was a fail. The altitude got to me (Angie) so we didn't make it far. I did get one nice photo.
On Sunday night we had a terrific late night stargazing excursion. Our guides picked us up at 7 PM for the ninety minute drive north of Santiago. There we met an astronomy professor from Valparaiso. He has built a fascinating complex. The buildings and structures are perfectly aligned for the summer solstices and the constellations.
We learned and saw so many things. How to find the Southern Cross which helps you determine "true south". Looking at Jupiter with its dark "rings". A close up of the Sea of Tranquility.
And he had all kinds of artifacts from the Inka and Mapuche tribes. Including several instruments. And he played all of them.
Just a fascinating person. I think he would have talked to us until the wee hours and made us breakfast. But our guides knew better and we left about midnight and got back to our hotel at 1:30 AM.
On Monday we had a tour through Holland America. We had a great city tour visiting some of the government buildings and even saw the changing of the guard!!
Then we went to Santa Rita winery. They have a "famous" Sauvignon Blanc called 120 that is widely distributed in the United States. The wines were okay but we had better ones on the wine tour on Friday.
And then, it was time to board the ship.
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