 |
| As my astute husband pointed out, the lines in the clouds nearly match the lines of the vines. |
The great thing about visitors is that they inspire you to explore. Sure, Ryan and I have been pro-active about seeking out the inspiring corners, peaks, and valleys in this here new home country of ours. We’ve surfed Punta de Lobos (okay, fair enough, Ryan surfed it, but I did my best on a boogie board), we’ve joined in on Chile’s dieciocho celebrations, and we’ve been spoiled by a positively divine winery in the Colchagua Valley that I’m eager to tell all of you about in print in the new year. For now, thanks to a November visit from my mom and a dear family friend, we set our sights on another of Chile’s famed wine regions: the Maipo Valley.
 |
| A Sunday at Viña Perez Cruz. I was quite content to travel down this road on a bike with family and friends. |
When I am lucky enough to get to mountain bike through a vineyard, I realize that I am in fact living in another country. It’s not that the wineries didn’t remind me of the wine regions I’ve visited in California–Napa, Sonoma, Santa Barbara. It’s not that I didn’t have familiar faces alongside me (who are also our fist official visitors in Santiago). It’s that, well, I was mountain biking through a vineyard, something I never took it upon myself to do back in California.
 |
| The view from inside one of the vineyard’s many almond orchards, whose proximity is supposed to enhance the flavor of the wine. We couldn’t believe we had never seen almond pods up close. They were green and fuzzy and ready to crack open and eat! |
 |
| I mean, seriously?! |
down a rocky backroad and then the highway…
 |
| Me and Mace, a touch of the vineyards, the open road, and the bikes! |
 |
| My kind of pour, in the great outdoors. |
Mario, the owner of Viña Huelquen let us taste his next batch of Riesling and Cabernet Sauvignon directly from the stainless steel spicket in a room without walls or solid doors but sheltered by an aluminum roof. It may take extra work for Mario to maintain the temperature of the wine during the fermentation process, but as the breeze off the vines filtered through, as did the occasional howl of one of the vineyard’s 25 dogs, I relished the divine freedom that must be working (and tasting) in the outdoors.
 |
| It’s easy to check for color, when natural light filters through the ceiling. |
Our tour group retired to the shade of one of the property’s overarching trees and gathered (both spent and energized) to taste, laugh, and translate, as snippets of English, Spanish, French, and Italian floated across the table. My favorite was an incredible organic 2009 Cab, appropriately named Amicus (latin for “friend”) and labeled with the footprint of one of the vineyard’s aforementioned four-footed friends.
 |
| Cactus flowers in bloom at Viña Huelquen. |
Then it was onto lunch at a roadside restaurant/bird sanctuary, where I could finally break bread over the Chilean dishes I’ve been talking about with those back home, including pastel de choclo, a corn-crusted, clay-potted pot-pie of sorts, and mote con huesillo, a traditional peach dessert that’s been more and more intriguing since the warmer weather has kicked in.
 |
| I think Chile is altering my taste buds. Not sure I ever would have gone for this back home, but here I can’t get enough. |
We have much to explore yet… Bicentennial Park, coastal towns due west, some places Ryan and I have already seen and loved and are eager to share, and others that will be just as brand new to us as they are to our visitors. That dual exploration is just one of the pleasures of getting to welcome family and friends who literally traveled for days in order to reach across the equator, descend from late fall into early summer, and take a look around our new home. And we’re grateful.
2 comments