Our final full day was spent at one winery, Encierra. The Eyzaguirre Echenique family were grape growers who had originally come from the Baque country. In the 1990s they formed a joint venture with the Lafite Rothschilds, which within a decade had achieved world fame with their Los Vascos brand. This was sold to Santa Rita, and the family bought land in Peralillo, one of the emerging ‘terroirs’ of the Colchagua Valley. They focussed on grape growing, selling their high quality grapes to other winemakers until the founders’ daughter, María Ignacia was allowed to create a small winery, and make their own wine, which she has done since 2012.
This was explained to us by Ines, a fount of knowledge and entertainment. She explained that our day would be relatively hands-on, and we were kitted up with aprons, caps, snips and given plastic crates, which we carried up the hill (beside the line of indigenous trees planted to assist with moisture retention). With a bit of instruction we picked Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and filled the crates, which we then took back down the hill to do a second sorting.
Later in the afternoon we returned to see some juice from our very own grapes being assessed for potential alcohol by cellar chief Juan, using both a hydrometer and refractometer – a first for most of us. Disappointingly, though we had thought the grapes we were picking had tasted really sweet, they weren’t quite ripe enough so the juice would be drunk by kids and the annual harvest festival which was happening in Peralillo the next day.
We weren’t too disheartened as we’d had a lovely visit, seeing their compact winery and the beautiful chapel used by the local community, both contained in the same cool, peaceful hacienda style adobe building.
In their lab come wine shop a tasting of their range of wines, culminating in the 2016 vintage of their icon wine ‘Por El’, dedicated to María Ignacia’s father, Don Jorge, who died in 2003, and is buried here. Her mum (also María Ignacia) is 94 and going strong!
After our tasting we headed up the hill, some on foot, some by coach, to enjoy a lovely asado lunch cooked freshly in front of us, with, of course their wines.
What a lot we learnt that day! There was enough time to have a rest, or a swim, make a start on packing, and then we headed to the Casona Bistro, for our final dinner of the tour. A very pleasant last evening together, celebrating a couple of birthdays, enjoying some memories and, once again, eating lovely fresh Chilean food.
