Winery tour #3: Santa Rita

We went to visit the winery of Santa Rita 2 weekends ago. It was gorgeous. It is right at the base of the foothills of the Andes Mountains. Impressive to say the least. It is BIG too. Much larger than the other 2 we have been to. They bottle 200,000 bottles of wine a day, 6 days a week. That's a lot of wine. When you drive up you are immediately surrounded by miles, ahem, kilometers of grapes. The tour guide answered a question I have had since we moved here but kept forgetting to ask.
Question: "why are there rose bushes planted at the ends of each row of grapes?"
Answer: Turns out they do this so they can detect any sort of fungus, ect in the soil. If the rose bushes die they know something is wrong with the soil and they can pull up the grape plants and save them. The guide compared the roses to the canaries in the coal mines. Smarty pants.

The roses looked good, so no worries here for the little grapes of Santa Rita. So Santa Rita's winery is in Maipo valley but they have grapes in Casablanca, Rapel and Colcahgua valleys as well. The weekend before we went they had their harvest....so this means they were actually making wine! Ah so cool! So while on tour I got to see the HUGE metal towers where they were in the process of making the wine. The guide showed us how they control the temperature and how long they keep the wine in the containers. Some wines can stay in the metal towers for up to 8 months. Then once they are done in the metal towers they are moved to barrels. They use oak barrels from France and the good ole' USA.

The white wines dont get put into barrels. They are reserved for the reds. After seeing the wine making they took us down to the cellars. The wines are stored horizontally so that the wine has contact with the cork. That is apparently very important for the wine to have proper oxygenation and maturation. I am learning so much in Chile! There were stacks and stacks of rows and rows of bottles. There is a special cellar that was the original cellar used at the winery. See below. 

It was beautiful on the inside. It has the original walls and floors and the structure was untouched until the big earthquake of 2010. One of the main columns was lost and the winery lost 5% of production. They fixed the column and now it isnt used anymore. It is a museum of sorts and now protected by the Chilean History Society. Pretty cool!
Ok so now to the good stuff.
Scenery: Absolutely beautiful. The mountains in the background really make it stand out. I still think that Casa del Bosque is the prettiest but this one is easy on the eyes too. It really is lovely. I think maybe we picked a bad day to go because the ash cloud from the volcano eruption down south was passing over the greater Santiago area and the air was hazy. I couldnt really see everything. We maybe should give it another go when my mom visits. This one gets extra cool points because it grows grapes, processes them, makes the wine and bottles it.
Carmenere: It is fantastic. They make some of the better Carmenere in my opinion. I love it. It is perfection and actually their Carmenere is the one that made me fall in love with this variety of wine. Their carmenere comes from the Colchagua Valley.
Cabernet Reserva: It is tasty. I really like this one. It is not as strong as some other cabernets that I have had since being here. It is smooth and light. It has a nice after taste and smooth on the tongue. Their Cabs come from the Maipo Valley. The Maipo Valley is famous for their Cabs.
Cabernet Grand Reserva: This one was "eh". It was kind of spicey and not really my thing. It wasnt bad but it just wasnt my favorite. It was too strong for me.
Sauvignon Blanc: Their grapes for the Sauvignon Blanc comes from the Casablanca Valley. All the good SB's do. It is good. It is light and fresh. It is slightly acidic and tart but not overly so. It to me would be perfect on a summer afternoon with some fish or ceviche. yum.
Food: We didnt eat so I cannot speak to the food, but the restaurant was lovely and so rustically beautiful. I have it on good authority from a friend that the food matches the environment. They were actually prepping for a wedding while we were there! We sat in the garden and had a glass of vino while Curly girl ran around like a maniac.

All in all great winery. 2 thumbs up!!