Friday, April 1 — Wine tours!

An early start for the 2+ hour drive to Colchagua Valley. We visited two vineyards: Neyen Winery and Lapostolle. Neyen grows 5 different grapes on its property, but produces only one type of wine  — a blend of Carminerre and Cabernet.  The other grapes are taken to a “sister” winery. Neyen produces less than 75,000 bottles of wine a year and almost all of it is exported. Just 4% stays in Chile. Lapostolle, a much larger vineyard, produces about the same number of bottles and also limits its production to just one type of wine; theirs is a blend of Carminerre, Cabernet and Merlot. The other grapes are shipped to another winery where they make, among other wines, a Merlot that we found to be delicious. We bought a bottle of it to enjoy in our room. We learned that it is cheaper to buy these Chilean wines in the U.S. than it is to buy here in the country.

Cliff with our tour guide at Neyen vineyards.
Cliff with our tour guide at Neyen vineyards.
Cliff samples a grape off a newer vine -- not as sweet as the fruit on the 125 year old vines.
Cliff samples a grape off a newer vine — not as sweet as the fruit on the 125 year old vines shown below.

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Eucalyptus trees are everywhere in Chile's wine valleys -- imported from Australia as windbreaks. These looked like they might have been planted at the same time as the 125 year old grapes. (See picture below.)
Eucalyptus trees are everywhere in Chile’s wine valleys — imported from Australia as windbreaks. These looked like they might have been planted at the same time as the 125 year old grapes. (See picture below.)
The lab technician who measures sugar content of wine-in-progress brought out samples of carminere, shiraz and cabernet.....definitely still at the grape juice stage.
The lab technician who measures sugar content of wine-in-progress brought out samples of carminere, shiraz and cabernet…..definitely still at the grape juice stage.

The Neyen Winery has a modern production facility and a gloriously old (1880s) building that is used to store the casks as the wine ages. The old Adobe building had undergone a major renovation in 2006 and as a result survived the 2010 earthquake in pretty good shape.

Window niche shows the thickness of the adobe walls. The white roses come from the garden of hundreds of white rose bushes. Beautiful. See below.
Window niche shows the thickness of the adobe walls. The white roses come from the garden of hundreds of white rose bushes. Beautiful. See below.

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The Lapostolle winery, on the other hand, is housed in an incredible modern building that was dug into the granite. They had virtually no damage in 2010 other than a couple of bottles that broke in their wine store.  Lapostolle is owned by the French family that owns Grand Marnier. No expense was spared.

The curve of the entry doors which is repeated in the design of the gardens leading to it (see below) suggests the shape of a barrel.
The curve of the entry doors which is repeated in the design of the gardens leading to it (see below) suggests the shape of a barrel.

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Each level of the Lapostolle winery is devoted to a specific step in the wine making process. The stairway that leads to each of them was inspired by the practice of swirling wine in a glass before tasting.
Each level of the Lapostolle winery is devoted to a specific step in the wine making process. The stairway that leads to each of them was inspired by the practice of swirling wine in a glass before tasting.
Instead of the usual stainless steel vats, huge oak barrels are used for the first stage of fermentation.
Instead of the usual stainless steel, Lapostolle ferments its wines in huge French oak vats.

Both wines are completely handmade. The grapes are harvested by hand, they are de-stemmed by hand, women pick through the grapes and reject any shriveled grapes or grapes where the skin has been broken.  Neyen ferments its wine in the usual stainless steel containers and then ages the individual types of wine in French oak barrels. After a year, the wines are blended and bottled and aged for another year. Lapostolle ferments its wines in large French oaks vats. This process takes about 11 weeks. Then the individual wines are transferred to oak casks where they age for year. A that point, the winemaker decides on the blend and the wines are blended and re-introduced into the oak casks for another year of aging before bottling. (Yes, this is a very pricey wine!

Happily, the dreaded phylloxera is not a problem in Chile — so we didn’t have to hear about it every step of the way as we have in Napa!

Our tour guide at Lapostolle was nearly as charming as Giles from Robert Mondavi in Napa….but not quite:-)

Our guide explaining how the French oak vats are emptied using gravity only to avoid releasing the lees into the fermented wine.
Our guide explaining how the French oak vats are emptied using gravity only to avoid releasing the lees into the fermented wine.

We had a delicious (and need I say HUGE) lunch at a restaurant on the grounds of the Viu Manent vineyard, Rayeula. We’ll skip dinner and enjoy our Merlot tonight. Cliff is suffering from a horrible cold, so an early bedtime is a good idea.

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