Lots of wine and a Mall

5 January 2009

This morning I woke refreshed and ready for the day after the deepest and most restful sleep in my life (or for as long as I can remember). Today was the visit to one of Santiago's wineries or Vinedos. I decided to pay $33,000 pesos or $52 dollars to do a half day tour at one of the first wine exporters in Chile, Undurraga vineyard. Even though Chile has one of the most perfect climates to grow grapes and has done so as early as the 16th century, poor political situations, taxes and local people favoring cheap and not so good tasting wine limited Chile's production until the 1980's when conditions changed. Within a decade, Chile created first class wines to be distributed worldwide. This accomplishment was simple with a little investment in production and the perfect natural setting. Besides Chile's perfect climate for grape growing its isolation has also protected it from pests. Therefore, vineyards use no to very little pesticides. In fact Chile and Argentina are the only grape growers that do not need to worry about an insect called, pylloxera, which troubled European and Californian wines in the 19th and 20th centuries. Finally, labor and land is so cheap Chile produces great wine at a very low cost.

The tour was through Turis Tour. The tour guide spoke very good English and was very impressive since he gave the entire bus protion in both Spanish and English. There were 30 other tourists on the bus. Only 5 of us spoke English: two Americans from Georgia and a couple from Austria who had been traveling for a month visited all of Chile's and Argentina's wineries. The trip there was fast just 30 minutes outside the city.

Once the group got to Undurraga Vinedos we split into two tours. Our tour guide(already forgot her name) was excellent. We viewed the garden ares, heard of the history of Undurraga, walked through the vineyard, explored and learned of the process of making different types of wines, and got to go into their historical cellars to see where and how the wine is stored. Then of course we ended with a tasting and shopping. The wine was excellent especially their Cab Sav. If you can find it I would highly recommend getting some for your next meal. You can check out the vineyard at this website: http://www.undurraga.cl/Sitio/INDEX.html

After the winery I returned to the hotel and tried to get online which I quickly realized I needed an Ethernet cable for. So begrudgingly I went to the Mall Jaime had suggested yesterday. Now, I hate malls anyways but this being an extra big one and everything in Spanish making it very difficult for me to find the type of store I needed, I was even more miserable. After walking through all four floors I found the store and item i needed. After that I tried to find the nearest exit and to my dismay there were just as many stores and floors as inside the mall. There was also several clubs, a bowling alley, movie theater and restaurants. I was starving so I grabbed Thai at a pretty trendy place. I was one of two people in the resturant-it seems dinner in Santiago doesn't happen until 9pm or later. The meal was very good and immediately began to put me into a food coma. So, I headed back to the hotel where I got a quick swim in the pool, then headed up to my room to begin the blog.

Tomorrow the crew is coming so I wanted to make sure I was ready for all the issues that could occur, so I was fast aslepp by midnight.

***I am writing this on the boat and I am having difficulties with the connection, so no pictures today. I will try again tomorrow and catch up with the past two days.***