V is for Vendimia

While living in Chile I became great friends with twin brothers, Esteban and Luis. We have kept in close touch since I left over 10 years ago now.  I visited Esteban in Canada when he went there to study, returned once to Chile and traveled around with him a bit and showed Luis around when he trained around the United States and spent a week in Colorado with me.

The brothers and their family have a farm in Cauquenes, Chile. In the ten years I have know them, I have listened in awe to the stories they tell of Vendimia.  On their farm, they grow grapes. Once a year, around this time, family and friends from all over, meet on the farm and harvest the grapes. 

During the days, they hoist baskets up and down the rows of grapes collecting the delicate fruit from the vines.  In the afternoon, they put the grapes in giant barrels and stomp them. Just like in I Love Lucy. Really! In the evenings, they have huge asados with all the Chilean foods I miss. And at night, they sit around a huge campfire drinking wine and pisco enjoying the company of each other. When it is time to go to bed, everyone retires to the various tents set up around the farm.

The boys invite me every year, and it has been a dream of mine since I first heard about it, to go. I really cannot imagine anything more amazing than being back in Chile with my old friends and their family, picking grapes and stomping them, sleeping under the southern sky, soaking it all in.

The way my terms work at my teaching job, and in order to keep my health insurance, I’ve never really been able to go when it takes place.  But we are soon moving to semesters which may allow me to take a semester off while teaching shorter four week terms upon my return. Thus making it very possible.

I have set a time limit for this one contingent upon the length of my visa for Chile which expires in 2018. I will take a term off. I will return to Chile, the only country I will allow myself to return to. I will spend a couple of weeks there, one on the farm fulfilling a dream, the other around Chile visiting old friends. I will then visit Paraguay and Bolivia for two weeks or so and finally see all of southern South America.

My eyes tear up as I write this, thinking of how long I have been dreaming of doing this, returning to Chile, seeing my friends, doing something I’ve only ever seen in pictures.  So Esteban and Luis, watch out. I’m heading your way. 

Argentina

This month I am participation in a blog challenge. I will write 26 blogs. Each title will begin with each of the 26 letters of the alphabet. My idea is to write about different countries and cities I’ve visited and share a specific memory experienced there. Hope you enjoy!

 Argentina

 The bus ride from Santiago De Chile to MendozaArgentina is six hours long, with 28 switchbacks and a border crossing in the middle at nearly 10,000 feet.  We took it at night so as not to waste a day traveling and in the hopes that we could sleep. That never happened. Not in those conditions. 

I still made the trip several times while living in Santiago.  At the time, Argentina’s peso was so low we’d spend more money on a regular weekend in Santiago than we would  traveling to Mendoza, going on wine tours, eating 5 course dinners and enjoying all the ice cream we could manage. 

It was in Mendozathat I discovered my love of Malbec wine.  I am still dumbfounded by any Californiawine that tries to say they are a Malbec.  I turn my nose up to it. Before Mendoza, I had never even heard of Malbec, though I had considered myself a budding connoisseur.  I eagerly participated in the monthly wine tastings offered at the restaurant where I was working in Chicago. In Mendoza, I remember thinking what a poor job the sommelier had done, not including a Malbec on every list.

It was in Mendozathat I visited my very first vineyard.  I saw the vines and the barrels and everything in between.  We were treated to a five course meal, each course paired with a different wine.  During the second course I savored my first Malbec. It was love at first sip.

Perhaps, had I never gone to Argentina Mendoza, I may have discovered a Malbec at some other point in my life. I’m sure I would have enjoyed it just as much, as things such as fine tastes rarely change, but I think the association with the many memories and moments I experienced in Mendozaeach time I visited made the wine even more special to me. Besides, had it been another time, it may have been Californian. 

Argentina

This month I am participation in a blog challenge. I will write 26 blogs. Each title will begin with each of the 26 letters of the alphabet. My idea is to write about different countries and cities I’ve visited and share a specific memory experienced there. Hope you enjoy!

 Argentina

 The bus ride from Santiago De Chile to Mendoza Argentina is six hours long, with 28 switchbacks and a border crossing in the middle at nearly 10,000 feet.  We took it at night so as not to waste a day traveling and in the hopes that we could sleep. That never happened. Not in those conditions. 

I still made the trip several times while living in Santiago.  At the time, Argentina’s peso was so low we’d spend more money on a regular weekend in Santiago than we would  traveling to Mendoza, going on wine tours, eating 5 course dinners and enjoying all the ice cream we could manage. 

It was in Mendoza that I discovered my love of Malbec wine.  I am still dumbfounded by any California wine that tries to say they are a Malbec.  I turn my nose up to it. Before Mendoza, I had never even heard of Malbec, though I had considered myself a budding connoisseur.  I eagerly participated in the monthly wine tastings offered at the restaurant where I was working in Chicago. In Mendoza, I remember thinking what a poor job the sommelier had done, not including a Malbec on every list.

It was in Mendoza that I visited my very first vineyard.  I saw the vines and the barrels and everything in between.  We were treated to a five course meal, each course paired with a different wine.  During the second course I savored my first Malbec. It was love at first sip.

Perhaps, had I never gone to Argentina Mendoza, I may have discovered a Malbec at some other point in my life. I’m sure I would have enjoyed it just as much, as things such as fine tastes rarely change, but I think the association with the many memories and moments I experienced in Mendoza each time I visited made the wine even more special to me. Besides, had it been another time, it may have been Californian.