May 10th: Winery, Poets, and Dancing

Or first stop this morning involved a visit to a vineyard named Viña Indomita. The vineyard is some distance away from Viña del Mar, so we took a sleepy bus ride to Casablanca Valley. Casablanca Valley is a beautiful place surrounded by rolling hills and filled with grape vines. The building where the processing of grapes occurs is positioned on top of one of the hills and overlooks the valley below. After taking in the breathtaking scenery, we were met by a representative of the winery to take a tour and learn about their company and the winemaking process.

The grapes in the vineyard are, of course, the first part of the wine making process. At this time of year, the grapes are harvested, but they must have the correct sugar level before being picked. The most interesting part of this step is the vineyard's use of roses. Roses are a similar plant to grape vines, but are more delicate. By placing rose bushes near the vines, the people tending the plants can see when diseases hit rose plants and then have time to react before the same disease affects the vines. The bushes also attract aphids away from the vines and good bugs to the area.

After being picked, the grapes are taken inside the production building to finish the process. White wines and red wines are produced in different ways. The process for making white wine was more interesting to me than for making red wine. The grapes are brought in chilled and the juice is extracted by squishing the grapes with a balloon. It is important to not damage the skins in this process because of chemicals in the skins and because the skins give color to red wine. I wonder how this process was developed, as it seems somewhat obscure. It would probably take many different designs to get to one that works as well as the current one. The production room was full of large stainless steel tanks which are used to age the less complex wines. According to our guide, the lower quality wines cannot be aged in barrels because the wood aroma and taste would overpower that of the wine.

Next, we were taken into the room where the higher quality wines are aged in barrels. This room has to be kept at a very constant temperature, humidity, and lighting for the wine to properly age. For example, if the room is too warm, the wine can evaporate out of the pores in the wood. To maintain the high humidity level necessary, there are rock beds under the rows of barrels to which water can be added. The winemaker is the most important person in the process, as he is the one who determines when the aging process is over through tasting and through monitoring the amount of time the wine has aged. It seems to me that the winemaker would have to be very knowledgeable about all of the details of the process in order to produce high quality wines. We were told that winemakers are agricultural engineers, but my guess is that they are knowledgeable in many more areas such as chemistry and industrial engineering.

To conclude our tour, we tasted three of the wines produced by Viña Indomita. I do not like the taste of many wines in general, but they seemed to be a very good quality, and I am sure that people who like wine would enjoy drinking them.

We then drove to Isla Negra to see one of Pablo Neruda's houses. Before touring, though, we ate lunch at a cafe next to his house with an expansive ocean view. Lunch consisted of an appetizer of shells filled with seafood and cheese, a main course of fish soup, and tiramisu for dessert. Everything was delicious, but the amount of food was huge!

Pablo Neruda's house was a very interesting place. His house was inspired by boats and trains and was full of various collections including bottles, shops in bottles, figures from the prows of boats, compasses, bugs, and many other seemingly random things. According to the self-guided tour we took, his house was an inspiration for much of his written work. Since Pablo Neruda is such a well known Chilean author, it was interesting to see his home in Isla Negra and what inspired his work.  I am interested in reading some of his works now that I know more about his life and have seen where he lived.

To conclude the night's activities, we had another dance lesson at the University.  This class rather than having a specific style was more like a Zumba class.  It was a lot of fun and reminded me of some of the dance classes I have taken at home.

After returning to Viña del Mar, Hannah and I decided to try to get dinner on our own.  With the cultural and language differences, it was difficult for us to figure out if we were supposed to order before sitting, or wait to be sat, or just sit down and wait for someone to wait on us at the place we started at.  Consequently, we went to another restaurant and found someone who could speak enough English that we could figure out what to do until getting a menu.  We were very proud of our accomplishment of getting food, and hope that it will be possible to do so easier next time.