The wine suggestion designed and implemented last year in Explora Patagonia, Explora Atacama and Explora Rapa Nui is an original and varied selection made by Héctor Vergara, only Master Sommelier in Latin America, to invite travelers to discover the chilean territory.
Chilean wines with sense of origin and excellent quality are some of the common characteristics of the wines in this list including 13 alternatives. Some are classic such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Chile’s famous vine, Carménere; other are less traditional such as Sauvignon Gris or Carignan. “The person who comes to Torres del Paine or Atacama, wants to experience our products. They are not interested, for instance, in a French foie gras because they have already seen it and tasted it somewhere else”, says Vergara explaining why our wine list includes exclusively Chilean wines.
Together with the wine list included in the hotel rate, a special renewed selection was implemented with 15 wines ranging from 25 to 400 dollars for those travelers who wish to explore the country’s wine offer.
Along with these changes came the redesign of the wine list that travelers see when choosing what to drink with their meals: it is a wine list that includes the map of Chile, and that goes from the Limarí Valley to the Malleco Valley, teaching about the vines and the characteristics of the territory that grew the wines offered.
Another characteristics of the list’s wines
Besides being chilean, all the wines in this selection have a distinctive feature, according to Vergara. “In this business, there are a number of wines that are good, regarding which I will not give further explanations, I will say that the wine is good and that it goes well with meals, but I cannot say much more. However, there are other wines that do have a sense of belonging to a place, of which it is indeed possible to tell a story, and we have done our best to express exactly that on the wine list.”
For this expert, the sense of origin is a world tendency. “It does not happen only with wine, but also with food, music, art and many other things. Having a sense of belonging undoubtedly gives an added value.”
In Chile, this tendency goes along with the rediscovering of ancient vines in the Maule Valley (Chile’s Maule Region), and vines that were not appreciated and now revive such as the Carignan, which was included in the wine list.
Exclusivity was another characteristic that is common to the wines in this list, according to the expert. From his point of view, being exclusive “does not mean that it is out of reach for people, but that it comes from a small production, that you will not find it everywhere, and above all, that it has a good quality”.
