Tres Vinos

Will, our host, arranged for us to visit three different wineries today.  One is a boutique winery, one was a very large winery and the third was one that makes high quality wines for export.

Ian is part shareholder, general manager, and winemaker of Tresmonte Boutique Winery in Colchagua Valley.  We toured the vineyards with Ian pointing out the different grape varitals and why he has planted them where they are on flat ground, hill sides, or mountains areas.  He then offered us tastings directly from the barrels for a Syrah and a Malbec and then we tasted wines from three vintages.  Three very interesting things about this vineyard and winemaker make this a unique experience.  One, Ian is an astrologer and collects asteroid fragments.  One of his wines is made with a piece of asteroid in the barrel with the wine.  He named this "Meteorite".  Two, some syrah vines are planted over an abandoned gold mine.  This one is called "Oro Los Coipos" as Los Coipos is the name of the mine and Oro is Spanish for gold.  And three, the restored home on the property is a 150 year old adobe brick house that has survived 7 earthquakes.

The second winery was Casa Silva which produces wine on a much larger scale and they have two other areas where they grow their grapes.  Most of the wine is kept in Chile and is priced for the average wine drinker.  It is family owned with 4 sons taking four different roles in the business.  The family home is now a hotel and they have some large spaces used for parties and for their antique car collection.  We tasted three excellent wines before dining on the restaurant patio which overlooks their polo field.

Santa Helena is right next door to Casa Silva and in fact was once part of Casa Silva but about 15 years ago part was sold to become Santa Helena.  They also have other areas where they grow grapes.  Their production focuses on reserve, grand reserve and premium wines.  We had a short tour of their facility and then were ushered into the second floor tasting room where a huge table was set up with wine glasses just for us.  We tasted four different wines with the guide asssting us through the process of of smelling the wine to pick out the notes of aromas and then tasting the wines.  Each wine was a higher quality than the last.