Photos from Chilean Segment of Our Wine Trip

Here is a collection of photos we took on the Chilean portion of our wine trip to South America in March 2008. Read the blog postings from each day's adventures for some laughs and to share the excitement.

Rehearsing for an Episode of "Bizarre Foods" on Travel Channel

We had a full day of wine tourism outside of Santiago and now we wanted a good meal. So, we went to a grill that the conceirge at the Ritz-Carlton recommended: Tierra Noble Restaurant. Some of us wanted meat and some of us wanted seafood. Fine - everything here is fresh and grilled, and quite good. And they had a great wine list.

Barry decided to order the "criadillas". None of us had any idea what they were .... except Barry. He is into eating all kinds of organ meat.

Here is the definition of criadillas:

"Bull testicles. Also called Prairie Oysters in Canada (Alberta). It is called "criadillas" in Spain but has different names in other Latin countries. The criadillas are the testicles of the pig. They are sliced first and then cooked with garlic and parsley, better if they are barbecued. If you don´t know what you are eating, the taste is intense but in a nice and pleasant way."

Fortunately, Barry asked the waiter if he liked them. You often do that in restaurants and expect the waiter to give you an honest answer. Our waiter responded "me no like." That was enough for Barry to change his order. We could just imagine the head chef telling the waiters that anyone who brought in an order for criadillas had to surrender their own for him to prepare.

Matetic Vineyards - there are Croatians even in Chile

After lunch, we visited Matetic Vineyards. The family immigrated from Croatia in the early 20th century and made a fortune in construction materials and mining.

Seems like you can travel thousands of miles from San Pedro and still run into people from Croatia. Our friend Pauline would love this place and feel right at home - she's Croatian.

What a winery building! Amazing modern architecture and a cellar that looks like it is right our of Star Trek. The walls of the cellar are all built out of river rock and kept in place with steel mesh. We're taking this picture from a balcony overlooking the barrel cellar.

And of course, there is the wine. Matetic's EQ varietals are available at good wine stores in the U.S. at a reasonable price. Good QPR as they say in the wine magazines.

Back to Santiago for dinner now.

Argentina, here we come

We booked another trip - this time to Argentina and Chile. No bicycling this time. This trip we are going to focus on wine tasting, sightseeing, and food.

Caren's cousin Barry and his wife Laurie (the wine gurus) are coming along.

Our itinerary starts in Buenos Aires, then we head to Mendoza (the heart of Argentina's wine country), fly over the Andes Mountains to Santiago, Chile, and finish with a few days in one of Chile's wine valleys.

We arranged the trip with Tim Robertson of Robertson Wine Tours. Tim is an expatriate from Great Britain who lives in Buenos Aires. If you ever consider a trip to South America, Tim is THE guy to call. He knows EVERYONE in the wine industry and has set us up with some one-of-a-kind arrangements that your typical tour never experiences.

We should have a fantastic time. It's the start of harvest and crush season down there, so there should be a lot of activity. Hopefully, we'll learn a lot about wines from Argentina and Chile so we can do some more buying for the wine cellar.

More to follow as we post our adventures.