Southern Exposure

Tuesday, March 10

We met for breakfast in the downstairs dining room around 10 am. Our favorite guest service lady was buzzing around replenishing the buffet spread and filling up our cups with tea and coffee. The buffet had an amusing selection of chocolate cereal, yogurt, cheese and salumi, tomatoes and avocados, jams and cookies, and everything in between.

We had a 12 pm reservation for a horse carriage tour and lunch at Viu Manent winery. Due to a wait for our laundry at the hotel we were 20 minutes late. Not a big deal we thought, we are on Chilean time after all. No such luck. The tour operator told us stiffly that he was “terribly sorry” but the tour was scheduled at 12 and they only wait for 15 minutes, so we were too late and if we wanted, we could take a tour at 3 pm. No thanks! “For your own sake you could have at least offered us to visit the wine store for a tasting and some wine purchasing…” we thought. But he was not that smart, so we moved on to another winery that was marked with a star in our guide book.

As always, things happen for a reason and usually better things come your way as a result of a mishap. The winery we chose to visit instead was Viña Montes, a highly successful premium wine producer of deep, rich, concentrated oaky red wines and crisp whites. Their Cabernet Sauvignon was the first export wine out of Chile, and they were the first ones to plant their vineyards on the hills (Stefano, I know you will appreciate this fact! 🙂 )

In addition, their gravity-flow winery was designed according to Feng Shui principles; and they play soothing classical music (while we were there it was Gregorian chants) in the cellar to their barrels like a woman sings to her unborn child during her pregnancy.

We were late for the vineyards tour but joined another couple for the cellar tour and tasting. We tasted four different wines, the best of which was 2006 Montes Alpha Cabernet Sauvignon, aged for 12 months in French oak barrels. Their most prized wines are Montes Alpha M and Montes Folly, which is what Judy and Susan purchased to take home.

Matt and I settled for a 2006 Montes Alpha Merlot, selected by Wine Spectator as both one of the top-scoring Merlots around the world and one of the Best Values in Merlot.

We then walked to the vineyards and sampled some Cabernet Sauvignon grapes which were quite tasty and awoke our appetite for lunch. For lunch we chose Panpan Vinovino (Bread Bread Wine Wine) just a few km west on the main road.

The sister restaurant Mistela was next door and had outdoor seating in a wonderful garden. Since their menus were interchangeable we opted for an outdoor seating and had the best lunch of this trip in the most pleasant surroundings, accompanied by a Ventolera Sauvignon Blanc we purchased a few days ago. Yay for no corkage fees!

The highlights of lunch were an eggplant casserole with polenta, Chilean style quail, salmon & vegetable “mold”, and lime meringue cake. As if to seal the restaurant’s status in the top three of the trip, a handsome cat strolled in just in time to be rewarded with left over quail and mashed potatoes for his cuteness. Happy, full and extremely satisfied we got back in the car and drove back to Santiago.

Back at the Plaza San Francisco and after a few hours of rest we went out to the Bella Vista pizza restaurant that Matt, Judy and Susan tried before. This was our last night together as Judy and Susan were leaving the next day for US.