Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
South America
355
Viu Manent
The Chile Express
Colchagua Valley, Chile
An aproned steward serves you the best
Chilean wine as you sit back on Merlot-col-
ored velvet seats and take in the Andean
peaks rolling by. You are sitting on the San
Fernandez-Santa Cruz wine train, a steam-
operated railway that travels 42km (26
miles) into the heart of Chile's finest wine
country, Colchagua Valley. This is no graf-
fiti-covered commuter subway, but a sleek
set of restored rail carriages with polished
brass fittings, elegant curtains, and white
cloth-laid tables with wine glasses sprout-
ing immaculate napkins. It gently rattles
past a valley of vines with the odd farmyard
and terra-cotta-topped house. It is the best
way to arrive in style at the bright yellow
railway station of the valley's main port of
call, the laid-back wine town of Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz is the jumping-off point to
visit one of Chile's most beautiful wineries,
Viu Manent. The heart of the winery is a
19th-century hacienda that exudes class
and colonial grandeur. Your tour begins
with a horse-and-carriage ride through the
vineyards, where you learn that this is one
of the few places on earth that evaded the
vine disease phylloxera, which nearly wiped
out the fine-wine industry at the turn of the
20th century. Because of Colchagua's rela-
tive isolation, its vines escaped the devas-
tating root lice that caused havoc in the rest
of the world. The vines you are looking at
have venerable lineage indeed, especially
the Cabernet Sauvignons, Malbecs, and
Merlots that were among the area's first
cultivated vines.
Back at the tasting center, you'll find
white adobe buildings surrounding a pic-
turesque garden with a central fountain.
Pyramids of old oak barrels stand in a
bright, stylish tasting room bedecked
with red walls and colorful art. There is
also a charming restaurant, graced with a
sweeping landscape painting of the valley
that runs along an entire wall. Elsewhere,
back-lit wooden vats sit amid easy chairs
in a room of bare wooden rafters and
beams. It is at once old and modern,
quaint and stylish.
The owners of this family-run winery
still live close at hand, in a gorgeous Span-
ish-style villa, where they can personally
oversee the winemaking operations. It all
The vineyards of Viu Manent.
