We went two colleagues to kill time on the weekend before a busy week working with customers here in Santiago. We've been in Santiago before and have been on a great wine tour previously in the area. This time we decided to take the whole day to visit multiple vineyards, knew we were never going to be disappointed with the quality of the wines here in Chile.
This started out with pickups from the hotels, we were the first so had a lot of pickups to cover. This was not a problem, time flew by quickly as the guides had lots of great and entertaining information to share while we were collecting people.
Once everyone was onboard and after driving through the countryside we went to visit Undurraga. Just as expected from our previous visit; great vineyard with lots of good history to share and not to mention great wines to taste. All that we were expecting.
Now we come to the unexpected great part of this tour. After a very nice lunch in a great restaurant (where we were treated to more great wine), we ended up driving into the middle of nowhere. Tree branches were hitting the bus while we were driving on this very narrow dirt road and you couldn't help but wondering where we were ending up.
Ended up being in a small artisanal/craft winery run by Mr. Ballek, a cinematographer by trade but who is running this family vineyard to make craft wines using only traditional methods. This was truly an experience we did not expect. Good conversation, good wines, great atmosphere. Truly a hidden gem we did not expect. Ended up being a very long day, but did not regret a single minute of it.
Highly recommended! This is truly something different.
