Chile! - Part 3: Concha y Toro Vineyard

On Monday I met with Franziska and Alastair early in the morning. Carlos and Consuelo had to work, so they could not join us for our vineyard tour at the Concha y Torre Vineyard, just 45 minutes out of Santiago’s City Center.

I met them in their hotel for breakfast, we put our luggage in storage and stopped a cab on the street. We were lucky. The driver accepted to drive us to the vineyard and back for a reasonable price and would wait there for us. Also, he was the funniest taxi driver I have ever met. He made the whole tour into a sightseeing tour, but not showing us the best sights of Santiago, but things like his old elementary school. He was laughing the whole time and even took some wrong turns and laughed about it.
In the end, we made it to Concha y Toro 5 minutes after our reserved tour was supposed to start, but we could still join. We decided to chose the big tour which involved more wine and a little introduction to how one recognizes good wine.
The tour itself was cute, but nothing to what I had remembered from the wine tasting tour my parents once did in France (with me and my sister following them around the wine cellar, totally impressed by what we saw (which was totally as described in Asterx in Rome) but not understanding anything the guide says nor being able to taste). We saw the wine barrels and learned about the differences of American oak and French oak, why it is lying in the cellar and that the old cellars are naturally cooled and with the optimal humidity, while the new ones above ground need to be constantly monitored. The oldest cellar of Concha y Toro is called “Casa de Diablo” as the legend tells that bottles were stolen from the cellar by employees, to which Don Melchior (founder of the vineyard) reacted by telling the people that the devil lived down there and that every month he came and took a bottle of the finest wine. The story made up was so powerful that the Christian and superstitious people that lived and worked on the vineyard got scared of that particular cellar and called it “Casa de Diablo”. No more bottles were stolen.
After the tour we had a wine tasting, where we were able to test 4 different wines of one of the top brands of Concha y Toro. Concha y Toro, being one of the biggest vineyards in the world with more than 8000ha, has many brands for all kinds of segments, prices and tastes. We tasted a Merlot, a Carmenère (Concha y Toros specialty), a Shiraz (Syrah), and a Cabernet Sauvignon. I liked them all but the Merlot, however, Carmenere and Shiraz were my favourites with the cheese and crackers we had. The really really good Cabernet would have been great if it had come with a heavy meal…
We learned about the colors, the smelling, taste and the way it sticks to the glass and I found it so interesting that I would do a wine course just to get to know more about it, but unfortunately, Goiania is not really the right place for it.
Our funny cab driver brought us back to the city center where we had a good lunch at a Peruvian restaurant with a cabernet sauvignon which allowed us to try out what we just had learned. We walked back to our hotel to pick up our luggage and stopped a cab to drive us to the airport. On the way we stopped at a wine store where Alastair and Franziska bought some wine and then we had to go to the airport quickly.
As always, lines were really long, and when it was really really time to check in I was 2nd in the line and one of the ladies from the counters came and started picking out people from behind me in the queue that had a flight that left 5 minutes before mine. I tried to talk to her, because out of a sudden there were ten or more people in front of me and my check-in was closing. She didn’t hear and so I started bitching at her in Spanish and finally she heard me. Franziska and Alastair who just needed to drop off baggage as they were able to check in online were already at the counter and made me signs to hurry, as it was closing (the lady told them they were lucky arriving 2 minutes before closure). So I just pushed the lady aside and went over to the counter where Franziska and Alastair were standing and checked in there. Of course the LAN-Airline girl wasn’t happy, but really: what do I care in that moment…

We had to fly a big detour over the Andes due to bad weather conditions and only got out of the airport with our luggage around 1:30am. My flight to Goiania would leave at 8am, so it really did not make any sense to go into the city to sleep on Franziskas couch and go back at 5am. Instead I took one of the free hotel transfer cars and slept in a very rundown, hostel like hotel in Guarulhos. But that was okay. At least I had some light hours of sleep (not much though, there was a very loud group of young, drunk, male Brazilians). I arrived in Goiânia on time and drove directly to the office. I was a little late, but noone noticed and I had had a really great weekend!