January 18, 2010
The day started with a visit to Kross Brewery, one of the first microbreweries in Chile, which has spawned 40 or so microbrew competitors in the last 5 years. Kross itself in only 7 years old. We met with its Danish/German co-owner Asbjorn Gerlach, still wearing his rubber boots. He is a master brewer, educated in Germany. When asked how he ended up in Chile he just waved his left hand in front of his face flashing his wedding ring. He met a Chilean woman in Germany, they tried long distance for a while and decided either someone had to relocate or it wasn’t going to work. Twenty years and three kids later, here he is, running Kross, down a bumpy dirt road, somewhere between Santiago and Valapariso. He walked us through the brewing process, and changes he had to make to adapt to Chile. Like me, he prefers hoppy, bitter beers, but the Chilean palate prefers sweet. So he tweaked his recipes to make them more appealing to the local market, and has been successful with it, both financially and critically, winning awards at home and abroad. To illustrate Chile’s love for sweets: it is the largest per capita consumer of soda and ice cream in the world, evening beating fat-ass America. It’s a lot harder to find an obese Chilean though.
For lunch we had some traditional country food, cooked in brick and clay ovens, at Los Hornitos. I had a gut bomb empanada filled with diced meat and onions, followed by a hearty bowl of Cazuela de Pollo — a chicken soup, with a half chicken, corn on the cob and potato in it.
In the afternoon, we visited Emiliana Winery, and my dream of what my winery will look like began to take form. The winery is biodynamic, meaning they use natural processes, and treat the entire vineyard as a whole living system, not just vines you feed with fertilizers and take grapes from. This allows the grapes, and the wine made from them to truly reflect the terrior of the property. It is as natural as you can get. This system somewhat resembles a zoo. Emiliana has over 20 alpacas, which they use for weed control in the winter, but have to take out of the vineyards once the vines wake up in spring, or the alpacas will devour the leaves and grapes. They have feet which more closely resemble the pads on dogs’ feet than hooves, so they don’t compress the soil. There are also flocks of geese, chickens, pheasants, and peacocks which are year round bug control in the vineyards. The vineyard also uses bees extensively with hives though out the property. The flowering plants around the tasting room were swarming with butterflies and honey bees. Periodically, vineyard workers put different colored pieces of paper, covered in adhesive, throughout the vineyard, and then count how many bugs are stuck to each color. Flowers are then planted in the rows, matching whichever colors have the most insects stuck to them. This draws insects away from the grape vines and to the sacrificible flowers, where they are eaten by the flocks of birds. The tasting room building was an organically designed structure with a sweeping roof. The wines were flavourful and delicious, justifying the organic vineyard approach.
