We headed out the Maipo Valley, which is located just east of the city of Santiago. Once we arrived at Cousino Macul Vineyard, we were assigned our trusty green bike cruiser.
The bike ride was led by a guide through the vineyard. It was a pretty easy stroll on some dirt/gravel paths, although, I tried to convince Scott that I would claim it as my first mountain biking experience.
As we pedaled along, the guide would occasionally stop and teach us about the types of grapes being grown, and the history of the winery. The winery is still family owned and has been around since 1856. One interesting fact we learned is that the Carmenere grape was brought to Chile from France, and after decades of mislabeling it as Merlot, it was "rediscovered" after the French thought the variety was extinct. Because of this, Carmenere is almost exclusively grown in Chile.
As we continued biking, we got to stop for a tasting among the vineyard. This was a surprisingly (in a good way) dry tasting Riesling.
Once back at the winery, we got to see how the production was done back in the olden days (now they use stainless steel vats). This is where you would see the people actually stomping the grapes in the giant barrels.
We moved on to three more tastings inside the main showroom. All were delicious, although many of us wanted to get a taste of their most premium wine, Lota. Lota is a limited production red wine that is aged longer than most of their other wines. It costs between $50 and $200/bottle. Fancy.
Anyway, we had a very ambitious and friendly (duh) Canadian lady in our group who got a group of us together to split a bottle for tasting. Scott and I thought "Why not?" and opted to join the group.
Now, let me say that Scott and I cannot claim to be wine experts by any stretch of the imagination. Honestly, I was wondering if I could taste the difference. Well, I did. It was very good!
We really enjoyed getting to combine something active with the wine tasting. Win-win!
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