Share Plate: (Pre-Wedding) Honeymoon, Part XV - Cruising the Chilean Wine Trail

Time to head to a different wine country – Chilean wine country. We flew to Santiago, grabbed our rental car (a Mazda with automatic steering) and headed west to the Casablanca and San Antonio valley – a little bit different from the more famous wine country to the south but with many interesting and up and coming vineyards.

Through some research, I found two different vineyards that have guest houses. Our first night, I booked us in Matetic Vineyards. Once we finally found it, we were overwhelmed by its beautiful grounds, plus we were the only guests that evening out of seven guest rooms, so we had the entire place to ourselves – our own vineyard!

The gardens were perfectly manicured and our room was classic country with tons of charm – three doors opening to porches on each side and the most comfortable bed we’ve ever slept in! No exaggeration…

And here's a quick tour of their picturesque grounds...

After dropping our things off, we were starved and headed to Casablanca Valley’s Casas del Bosque vineyard, known for their Pinot Noirs. It was about a 30 min drive to eat lunch at the restaurant there, Tanino, which our Chilean friends from the Explora van ride recommended. We opted for an appetizer tasting paired with their top wines which was an easy and fun dish. We LOVED the shrimp and pomegranate ceviche – the flavors were outstanding and enjoyed the Sauvignon Blanc (Reserva 2010) that was paired with it.

From there it was an overcooked panko crusted tuna with chardonnay. Then we had a local cheese wrapped in prosciutto paired with their Pinot Noir (Gran Reserva 2009) and then a melted cheese brioche with their syrah.

We also had a big salad which felt good and healthy for us.

healthy!

We then traveled back to Matetic and enjoyed a blissful afternoon of relaxing poolside – reading, writing, and eventually I went for a swim. As part of our room reservation, dinner at their restaurant was included. We ordered in advance and walked over there around 8pm. We found out, it was only open for us that evening – they only serve dinner to the overnight guests. So it was cool to have our own restaurant but also awkward. Clearly the staff wanted to get home and we felt bad keeping them there!

Gardens en route to the restaurant...

Bridge over geese-filled waters...

Private dining...

The food was pretty good. Nothing to write home about but we did enjoy the panko fried shrimp and the coq au vin was falling off the bone tender with very good flavor. We also really enjoyed their sauvignon blanc to start off our meal. A nice change of pace from all the red wine drinking we had been drinking.