Casablanca Wine Valley (Thurs 4/1)

Today we did a tour through the Casablanca wine valley. It is about 40 minutes from Valpo and probably 45 minutes from Santiago. It sits in between the two places. It is a relatively new grape growing region as they got started in 1985. They grow mainly Savignon Blanc, Chardonay, and Pinot Noir. Our tour guide is a Brit that fell for a Chilean girl while here on a study abroad program. Now married with two kids, he is giving wine tours in the summer and ski tours in the winter.  We were joined by another couple of England for the tour. 

Here is the tour in a nutshell --- great tours as everything was in full swing with the harvest, crushing, bottling and packaging. We visited three wineries and one included a fantastic lunch (this chef knew how to cook the meat perfectly).  The wines?  Not interesting, so I won't bother with names. We love the great value Veramonte Chardonnay that comes from this region. For us, the best Chilean wine still come from Colchagua Valley. 

We enjoyed a good seafood dinner overlooking the lights of Valpo. Arn had seared tuna. I had congrio (eel) wrapped in phyllo. Both were excellent. 

Tomorrow, we change hotels and move about six miles north to Vina del Mar. It is where the Chileans go when they want to go to the beach. Given the holiday weekend, it is going to be crazy.  We couldn't extend our stay in Valpo as our hotel is full. This is okay as three days was enough in Valpo. Our first choice place in Vina was full. So, we had go with something further down on the list. It was well reviewed on Trip Advisor, but we passed it in the van today --- it didn't look that interesting. Oh well.  We move again on Sunday. We now have all of our hotels booked until we return home. Two nights in Vina, two nights a few miles further north on the beach, and then two nights in Santiago in a area we have not stayed before. I think our A Plan in the Colchagua Valley would have been a better finish to the trip, but the earthquake literally knocked out that plan. I must tell you, we are both ready to be home. We are missing our own bed, not having to ration socks and underwear, our hot tub, and a place to just hang out. I am seriously in bike withdrawl.