Santiago Winery Tour

I'm not that much into wine, to tell the truth (I know this is not objectively true, ok, but it pretty much all tastes the same to me...so I have no palate, and/or drink plonk). But when in Chile, do as the Chileans do...or rather, do as the tourists in Chile do. So I went on a winery tour. There used to be real vineyards in Santiago--or in what is now Santiago, there used to be vineyards. The city expanded, the grapes moved out. But some winery headquarters seem to be still here. Hence I ended up at Viña Cousiño Macul.

Four of us were taken on the tour by the sommelier, a guy named Martin. What we got was a brief history of winemaking in Chile (the Spanish started it all in the mid 1500s using crap grapes), the history of the company, a look at some equipment that wasn't being used to make wine, and a couple of tastings. They still do make two vintages on site, but the rows of huge barrels we saw were disappointingly just for show, and the steel barrels that actually are in use were empty since it's not the right time of the year to be fermenting wine (that season switcheroo thing).

We got to taste one white and one red wine. Despite my limited palate, the white was a bit of a revelation. I usually find white wine kind of harsh, but that evidently goes to show that I'm drinking the wrong fizzle. The one I tried this morning had none of that--it was quite smooth. So if your local bootlegger carries Cousiño Macul Antiguas Reservas Chardonnay 2009, do lay in a few bottles. It's not expensive stuff, at least not in Chile, where it goes for about $8 a bottle.