The sparkling explotion

It might be safe to say that we can use the term "Sparkling valley" or "ruta del espumante", when talking about Casablanca.

The Casablanca valley now produces a vast amount of sparkling wine and its growing as a trend in the region.

Vina Mar

Indomita

Morande

Casas del Bosque

Quintay

OC wines

Bodegas RE

Vina las Nubes

Catrala

Vina Casablanca

Over 8 vineyards are producing sparkling wine with traditional methods. Vina Mar the first vineyard to produce sparkling in the valley, used to produce with the Charmat method in Casablanca, but not any longer.

It has been a surprise that this phenomenon had not happened sooner, since the raw ingredients for sparkling,

being Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, have always grown in abundance under the cool climate of the Casablanca valley.

So any sparkling wine fans would do well to venture to Casablanca to sample the sparkling wine buzz.

   

First day of the 2012-13 cruise season

Today November 7th was the first day of the 2012-13 cruise season.

My first clients for this season were Maura and her husband Carlo accompanied by Cheryl and Joan all of whom come from Canada.

We met up a little later than planned due to the ship not letting some people off, but we still managed to see the great coast line, check out some of Valparaiso and visit three vineyards in the Casablanca valley before dropping them off at the airport.

Another day at the office.

Valparaiso food and wine expo

I had a great two days at the Valparaiso food and wine expo.

I represented Veramonte vineyard over the two days and the Sauvignon Blanc 2012 was well received.

Casas del Bosque Blogger tasting

I had the great fortune to be invited to a Casas del Bosque vineyard and Wines of Chile USA tasting for some of the best wine bloggers from the USA.

This was shortly before hurricane Sandy struck and left some people stranded in Chile for a few days, which isn't such a bad thing.

bottlereport.com
sommelierjournal.com
bottlenotes.com
winepeeps.com
jamesonfink.com

These were the blogs that were represented at the event.

A lake of fog

On my way back from dropping some clients off at the airport, i make my way over Cuesta Zapata into the Casablanca Valley and all i can see is a lake of fog.

Matetic

I love the wines at this vineyard, but i don't visit Matetic as often as i should.

One of our clients Seth expressed great interest in visiting this vineyard in the Rosario sector of San Antonio.

Seth and his girlfriend Melissa enjoyed the Chardonnay and the Syrah more than anything else.

The race to be mayor of Valparaiso

This Sunday 28th the local elections will be held in Valparaiso to discover who will be the new Mayor and Councilors of Valparaiso.

Candidates from the left, right and independents all trying to get elected with posters everywhere bearing smiley faces and short slogans with very little policy, or should i say none completely.

Vineyard Tunquen in Colchagua

I took a trip to Colchagua at the week end to visit a friend having an engagement party and i brought along a promotional bottle of Tunquen Syrah.

It went down very well with everyone and alot of winemakers that had turned up to the party.

Polkura

What does it mean?

I don't know but it tastes good.

Polkura, Syrah, Colchagua, 2009.

Elegant, fruity, spicey and balanced.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

Here is just one of Chiles many stray dogs Chilling out on the streets of Vina del Mar.

Traditional Chilean folkloric dances.

One of the interesting things about Chile are the numerous folkloric dances that exist.

At the school my two sons attend we were treated to a show of various examples of folkloric dances that come from all over Chile.

The famous and most popular dance is the cueca, which is normally performed by a man and a women, each holding a white napkin. The stand a distance from each other before the music starts, then they proceed to dance around each, waving the in a swirling motion above their heads. It is supposed to suggest some kind of mating ritual like that of a cockerel and hen.

All of this was put on at the school to celebrate Chilean independence day, September 18th, which is a national holiday.

Not perfect but great.

It was not perfect. Not everyone that had been invited turned up to the Valparaiso launch of Tunquen wines. But you can be sure that we had a great time talking about and tasting these fine wines.

Viña Tunquen wine presentation at the Fauna Hotel, Valparaiso.

I am looking forward to tomorrows presentation of Tunquen wines at the Hotel Fauna tomorrow.

Quaint arty things you can pick up in Valparaiso.

Its always great when someone enjoys Valparaiso for what it has to offer. Not just the hill side lifts and magical realism of the city, but the wonderful bits of art that you can so easily buy.

Some great works can be found at around $10.000USD, which for some people is pocket money, but you can still get your hands on something creative to stick on your wall at home for as little as $20USD.

One happy buyer kindly sent me a photo of her proud purchase, framed and mounted on her wall back in Miami.

I won't tell  you how much she payed for it.

Things change.

I passed by Vina Mar yesterday to show some tourist how sparkling wine wine is made.

As we entered the winery, i realized that some big changes had been made and the main changes were the fact that all of the bottling and all of the elaboration of sparkling wine done through the Charmat method had been moved out of the Casablanca valley and to the Maipo valley.

This is all to do with the San Pedro wine group which owns Vina Mar and their necessity to cut costs.

Fortunately the traditional method (Champenoise) for making sparking has remained at the vineyard, which is good news.