View from on top of the red tanks at Cunaco.

Good Morning!

I am late posting because I have been watching the Royal Wedding and I read an article that discussed what the bride ate the night before the ceremony. In the article it stated she had Casa Lapostolle Sauvingnon Blanc, We had the same wine last night….for some reason I now feel connected to new Duchess!

So back to Santa Cruz, Chile. On this morning I meet Jerome, an amazing french man who happens to be one of the winemakers of Lapostolle. Jerome is one of the smartest and most passionate winemakers I have met. Jerome is also deeply educated about the vineyards as well. We met and as we drove into the vineyard he pointed out the Merlot, Cabernet, Carmenere, and the newly grafted Petit Verdot.

Jerome really is a teacher by nature and he stopped the truck and we got out and we pulled off a leave of each grape and explained how to tell each grape variety apart by looking at the leaves, by shape, color, and walked me through the process of grafting. Then we jumped on horses and took a wonderful, fun and relaxing ride through all the vineyards. We spent about 2-3 hours, that felt like lasted 20 minutes, but we weaved through the vines and blocks of grapes stopping to discuss anything from composting, to bio-dynamic vineyards, the certification of the vineyards to be bio-dynamic, and the philosophies behind winemaking, sugar levels, gravity wineries, oak vs stainless, you name it, I think we discussed it.

After our time on the horses Jerome grabbed a bottle of Sauvingnon Blanc by Casa Lapostolle and we went to Peruvian restaurant and we sat under a shady tree and talked about life. We ordered cheviche and sea bass. The wine paired beautifully and Jerome is an old soul and he discussed his winemaking career and I was fascinated. Besides learning about life in France and Chile, I learned of his love of travel and food. Jerome is a young vibrant man and the reason I go into this conversation so much is, as I write about so many winemakers I met, they all had a very common thread besides wine, each have a love of travel and trying new things from food and wines and strange places to vacation.

After we finished lunch it was time to work and Jerome took me to the CUNACO winery to meet the teams I would be working with. I first met Alex a team leader of the group that does all the tank work. Pumpovers, manual punch downs sanitation and everything involved with getting the fresh pressed white juice and the red grapes after the destemming into the tanks. It is hard and time consuming labor. They do everything using manual labor, because it treats the grapes more gently and produces a better finished produce. This plant produces Casa Lapostolle and Casa Alexendre wines.

As I worked with these guys I had the chance to taste the juice as it was becoming wine. each tank was pumped over up to 8 times a day and each day that passed I tasted all the wines and could taste as the fermentation was in progress. We worked hard and communication was sometimes tricky, most of the guys on the team knew a few english words and I understood most of what they said and if we could not understand each other a game of charades broke out. We laughed, we sweated, we learned, they taught me some Chilean Spanish, I taught them some English phrases. They discussed many aspects of their life and ask lots of questions about the the United States.

We worked 12 hours a day during the harvest and in the mornings it would be chilly while the grapes were being picked and by mid morning the fresh grapes would arrive and the day would amp up quickly and by the afternoon the sun would shine down and then it would be really warm up on the shiny stainless steel tanks, dragging hoses and connecting them and pumping the wine over the cap, then santitizing everything and move to the next tank while communicating with the person on the bottom or some times I was the person on the ground watching for anything that could happen. If I was on the bottom, I was running the pumps, moving equipment and keeping us on time and in proper order.

So that in a nutshell is what type of work I did when I was working for their team. Next week, I will start discussing the next team I worked with and what I learned.

Have a great weekend. Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi