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Santiago City Tours

Chile & Argentina Wine Tour

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Three mesmerizing cities and two world-class wine regions: this trip allows travelers to explore the best of South America’s wine country, and immerse themselves in Chilean and Argentine culture and its gastronomy, all in one unforgettable trip. We recommend that visitors spend at least 5 days in Chile, 3 days in Mendoza, Argentina, and 3 days in Buenos Aires.

Day 1: Arrival in Santiago / City Tour / Wine Tasting Dinner: Your Santiago guide will meet you at the airport and accompany you to the modern Las Condes sector of Santiago where you will check in to your hotel. In the afternoon there will be a guided city tour of the historical and cultural highlights of South America’s most modern city. In the evening we will enjoy a special welcome dinner with your Santiago Adventures guide at the Astrid & Gaston Restaurant. This is one of Santiago’s top restaurants and well known for their extensive wine list. We’ll try some special wines with our dinner and talk about our plans for the tour.

Day 2: Casablanca Valley and Valparaiso. We depart at 9am for the Pacific coast. Along the way we’ll make our first winery stop at Viñedos Organicos Emiliana in the Casablanca Valley. The cool coastal breezes make the Casablanca Valley an ideal spot for white wine production and VOE is the perfect winery to sample some of the region´s best! You will also have the chance to learn about the ways in which this vineyard is paving the way towards organic and biodynamic winemaking. Next you will visit the Kingston Family Vineyards and learn how their vineyard, which sources quality grapes to many of Chile’s top wineries, has evolved into one of Chile’s hottest boutique wineries offering award winning Pinot Noirs. After the tasting we will continue to the coast to explore Valparaiso, one of the first South American cities founded by the Spanish and now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Our lunch in Valparaíso will be at La Colombina Restaurant which is known for its fish and seafood dishes as well as excellent service. The restaurant has three spacious dining rooms finely decorated with antique furniture and an extraordinary view of the bay of Valparaíso. Following our lunch we will take a walk through the Concepcion and Alegre neighborhoods and ride the century old hillside ascensors (elevators). Along the way we will visit the Valparaiso home of Chile’s most famous poet, Pablo Neruda.

Day 3: Maipo and Cachapoal Valleys. The Maipo Valley, the “cradle of Chilean wine-making”, is the oldest and most famous of Chile’s wine regions and is home to many of Chile’s most traditional wineries. However, many new boutique wineries have sprung up over the past ten years producing some exciting new wines in the region. We will first visit Antiyal, a labor of love for its founders, renowned organic wine-maker Alvaro Espinoza and his wife Marina Ashton. We then head south to the Cachapoal Valley where we will visit Viña Anakena founded by school friends Felipe Ibáñez and Jorge Gutiérrez, they are making wines of quality and originality. The winery is committed to protecting the environment and practices sustainable production methods throughout all the stages of wine production. Here you will learn the characteristics of the different grape varieties of the valley and have a tasting. Following our relaxed lunch at the winery our day will conclude at your hotel in the Colchagua Valley.

Day 4: Colchagua Valley. Two hours south of Santiago is one of Chile’s largest wine regions and most developed from a “tourism” perspective. The Colchagua Valley is known for producing some of Chile’s best wine, particularly the red varietals of Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere Syrah and Malbec. Our visit today will be to Laura Hartwig winery. Laura Bisquertt inherited the property of “Santa Laura” from her father in 1966. Later, her husband, Alejandro Hartwig, and she moved to Canada, where they discovered their passion for excellent wine. Coming back to Chile, they decided to open their winery as a retirement project and named it after their daughter.

Day 5: Colchagua Valley. The Colchagua Valley is emerging as the new king of Chilean reds and today’s winery visits will no doubt demonstrate the quality of new wines coming from Colchagua particularly the Carmenere, Syrah and Malbec varieties. Our day will start with a visit to Neyen Winery which focuses all its production on one Bordeaux-style blend from their 115 year-old Carmenere vines. The Neyen de Apalta winery is the perfect blend of tradition and modernity. It was founded by the Rojas family in 2002 on the site of one of the area’s pioneering wineries that dates back to the late 19th century. Only ten minutes away is our next visit, Vina Clos Apalta, created in 1994 by Alexandra Marnier-Lapostolle (of the Grand Marnier family) and produces some of the best QPR (quality/price ratio) wines in Chile. Since its outstanding debut 1997 vintage, Casa Lapostolle's Clos Apalta bottling has helped to establish Chile as a premier red-wine region. Owner Marnier-Lapostolle and her team created a blend of Chile's distinctive Carmenère variety, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from the estate's oldest vines in Colchagua's Apalta sub-valley, then kept refining: fermenting in smaller lots, hand-de-stemming berries and constructing a gravity-flow winery. In 2008, they were awarded a 96 in Wine Spectator for their Clos Apalta wine as well as best wine in the world. We will have lunch at the Clos Apalta winery with a spectacular view of the valley.

 

Day 6: Mendoza Argentina. We will depart from Santa Cruz and drive to the Santiago International Airport in time for our flight to Mendoza. Arriving in Mendoza, we will check in to our hotel before taking a tour of the city. Tonight we will have a special dinner at 1884 Francis Mallman, an airy, elegant restaurant at the entrance of Bodega Escorihuela.

Day 7: Mendoza. We will depart from the hotel and drive to the Lujan de Cuyo area, one of Argentina’s most traditional and developed wine regions just south of Mendoza. It is home to many of Argentina’s famous wineries where the best Malbecs currently are being produced. First, we visit and taste wines at Tapiz winery tasting directly from American and French oak barrels. Then we visit Achaval Ferrer winery known for producing some of Argentina’s most prestigious wines. Our next visit is to Ruca Malen, a new vineyard which has seen significant development in just a few years time. Here we will taste their fabulous wines and afterward their chef, Lucas, will serve us a delicious lunch of Argentinean meat, cooked in a “disco de arado”. We will end our day visiting with one of Mendoza’s pioneering winemakers, Carmelo Patti. As one of the most important wine makers in Argentina, he will share his passion for winemaking while preparing special barrel tastings.

 

Day 8: Mendoza. Today we will visit the high-altitude wine growing area of Valle de Uco. This is the new frontier in Argentine winemaking and contains some of the most dramatic vineyard scenery in the region. The snow-capped Andes loom overhead with 1,800 meter vineyards running into the foothills. The architecture, technology and fine wines being created here are all quite impressive. Our first visit and tasting is at Bodega Pulenta Estate, where we will visit the winery, discover its amazing design and taste their excellent wines in their very unique tasting room. Next we visit Bodega Lurton, whose owners two famous French brothers chose Mendoza--and specifically Valle de Uco--because they saw amazing potential for their Argentinean winery. Their winery is equipped with the latest technology and we will taste right from the tanks. For lunch, we will visit Bodega Altus, with a great architectural design and cozy Mendocino decor.

Day 9 Buenos Aires: Departing from Mendoza on our morning flight to Buenos Aires we will arrive mid-day. Our local guide will meet us at the airport and accompany us to our hotel in the Recoleta neighborhood. The afternoon is free to explore the surroundings and relax. In the evening we will attend a glamorous Tango show with dinner in one of the most prestigious houses in Buenos Aires. Born in the outskirts of Buenos Aires at the turn of the century, Tango quickly grew to be the best known Argentine product worldwide. Our VIP seating assures us a great view of this special program!

Day 10: Buenos Aires. Today we will begin with an exclusive City Tour of Buenos Aires in which our guide will use four parks and plazas to introduce us to the city, its history, its contrasts and the characteristic “porteños”. At the end of the tour we will visit the Colon Theatre, one of the most spectacular in South America. The afternoon is free to explore - perhaps some shopping in the downtown La Florida sector or the new galleries in Palermo Viejo.

Day 11: Buenos Aires/Departure. Our last day in Buenos Aires is free to explore parts of the city you would like to see more of. In the evening we will depart from the hotel and drive to the airport for flights to the US.