Chile and Argentina in pictures

db braved the South American summer as a guest of Concha y Toro last week on a trip that took in the company’s Chilean and Argentine vineyards and its centre for research and innovation. Much wine, grilled meat, sunshine and other such deprivations followed.

The trip began… at the beginning, at Concha y Toro’s first vineyards in Maipo and, of course, included a visit to the original ‘Casillero del Diablo’.

Afterwards a tasting covered some of the company’s newest wines including a Pais/Cinsault blend from Cauquenes for the Marques de Casa Concha range and Concha’s contribution to the ‘Vigno’ project which champions old vine Maule Carignan. The tasting finished with a solid little vertical (2012-2014) of the top wine, Don Melchor; with winemaker Enrique Tirado explaining how he parcels up the vineyard and demonstrating the marked vintage variation between the three wines.

Harpers editor, Andrew Catchpole, doing his best to blend in at Almaviva where winemaker Michel Friou (below) was on hand to guide the group through another vertical of wines including the estate’s first vintage – the 1998.

That evening it was down to Cono Sur’s winery in Chimbarongo, Colchagua, where, in addition to an idyllic set-up complete with an excellent BBQ, we stumbled across this (ahem) ‘collector’s edition’ of the drinks business from 2003.

The next morning winemaker Adolfo Hurtado led the group on a bicycle tour of the vineyards (he is pictured below in the country’s first Pinot Noir plot that forms the basis of Cono Sur’s top Pinots such as ‘Ocio’).

Further south in Talca there was a visit to Concha’s multi-million dollar research and innovation centre. The assistant manager of the R&D department, Alvaro González, was on hand to show us around. In addition to an experimental winery and laboratory, the centre is a nursery, home to several ‘mother blocks’ of vineyards that produce around two and a half million plants a year. In the bottom picture the patch of green in the middle background is one such plot.

The Andes provided some dramatic scenery on the short hop from Santiago to Mendoza. They look a lot closer in real life!

At Bodegas Trivento, winemaker German di Cesare acted as tour guide, talking through the changing face of Argentine Malbec and Chardonnay while, outside, work on a new cellar that will up the estate’s output by some two million litres was underway.

Lunch in a picturesque spot.

Afterwards, justdrink.com’s Andy Morton had his first encounter with a local favourite – the bitter herbal tea, Maté – and that evening we were introduced (or perhaps reminded) of the Argentine passion for grilling – with no fewer than three ferociously hot grills or ovens in use for using flame and embers to char vast slabs of beef.

No trip to Chile is complete without an abundance of national flags and the presidential palace in Santiago had a suitable amount – including an especially enormous version on the forecourt on the other side.