Monday, April 21 – Day 125
The Maipu valley is right on the outskirts of Santiago, and a lot of really good wine is made here. I did a tour that covered 1) Vina Aquitana, an 18 year old winery that includes one of the principals of Chateau Margeaux as an owner, and 2) Concho y Toro, the largest winery in South America, and the 10th largest producer in the world.
The Maipu valley is right on the outskirts of Santiago, and a lot of really good wine is made here. I did a tour that covered 1) Vina Aquitana, an 18 year old winery that includes one of the principals of Chateau Margeaux as an owner, and 2) Concho y Toro, the largest winery in South America, and the 10th largest producer in the world.
Concho y Toro is about 150 years old, but it’s not the oldest winery in Chile. Don Melchor started the winery in 1853 by bringing in some grape vines from Bordeaux. He made some pretty good vino, but began to find that bottles started to go missing from his cellar. Suspecting that some of the locals were stealing from him, the legend has it that he began to tell everyone that the Devil himself lived there in the cellar, and after that, no more of the wine disappeared. Part of the tour takes you to the original cellar, and this is where the namesake barrels of “Don Melchor” cabernet are stored. It is regarded as perhaps the best wine in Chile, if not the world (#4 in Wine Spectator’s Top 100), and sells for US$120.00 here at the winery. And it does taste very good.
No comments:
Post a Comment