Things To Do in Colchagua Valley
Bookstore
Available as paperback
and as e-book.
Colchagua Valley Attractions
Santa Cruz Wine Train
If you're in San Fernando and seeking a ride to Santa Cruz, the languid Santa Cruz Wine Train (tel. 2/470-7403; www.trendelvino.cl) may be rather pedestrian for some tastes, but hopping on board this 1913 coal-fired steam engine locomotive certainly beats taking a bus. An attraction not unlike the Napa Valley Wine Train, it's altogether touristy and very expensive compared to independent touring. Once aboard, there is a tasting of five lowly varietal wines, so pay a little extra for their tasting of gran reserva wines. There is also a folkloric dance show. There are several tour options to choose from. The basic, full-day tour departs from Santiago at 8:15am on Saturdays only and includes round-trip bus transportation to San Fernando, the wine train, lunch, a visit to the Colchagua museum, and the Santa Cruz winery. It's a heck of a lot of antiquity/museums/artifacts/history for 1 day, and you'll need to plan to spend the majority of your day aboard moving vehicles of one kind or another. It costs $108 (£72).
- Winery/Brewery/Distillery
Casa Silva
Originally founded and planted by the Frenchman Emilio Bouchon in 1892, this winery has some of the oldest vines in Colchagua. The Silva family grew bulk wines until the 1990s, when the family son Mario Pablo Silva had an idea to revolutionize the winery to focus on fine bottled… - Winery/Brewery/Distillery
Clos Apalta
Few wineries in Chile have been talked about more than Clos Apalta's facility, and rightfully so. It took Casa Lapostolle, the parent of this icon wine, 4 years to blast tons of granite bedrock on a sloping hillside in order to build a $10-million, six-story, gravity-flow winery that… - Winery/Brewery/Distillery
Montes
Montes is a true Chilean winery success story. Twenty years ago, four partners with little capital and a big dream set out to make premium wines, something unheard of at the time in this country. Today it is one of the best-known premium wines out of Chile in the U.S. (Costco is the… - Winery/Brewery/Distillery
Viña Santa Cruz
Just outside the picturesque village Lolol, this Disneyland-esque winery is one of the most curious wineries in the world: It's a mock indigenous village, observatory, and museum all wrapped up into one. Launched in 2006 by local entrepreneur and one-man promoter of Santa Cruz,… - Winery/Brewery/Distillery
Viña Viu Manent
Viu Manent has seized the potential of wine tourism, and they've done everything right. The winery was founded more than 70 years ago, and their house specialty is malbec, a wine normally associated with Argentina. In fact, their gran reserva wines are perennial favorites, and their…
