Cheers to Chile!
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| Wine Class at The Fruit Center |
Whenever I think of great wines places like France, Italy, Spain, Australia and California spring to mind. I have never associated wine with the South American country of Chile, in fact, I’ve never even looked in the Chile section when selecting wine.
On Friday night, Luke and I went on a much needed date night to The Fruit Center in Milton to hear of Tim’s Excellent Adventures in Chile. We met some lovely couples and got to try six amazing wines all from the Viu Manent Vineyard, founded in 1935 by a family of Catalonian immigrants.
Tim shared with us his trip to the vineyard through stories and a wonderful slide show rich with photographs of seafood, clay oven baked empanadas, gorgeous avocado dishes, fresh Chilean fruit and of course amazing wines.
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| Wine notes |
We started the evening with a Sauvignon Blanc. According to the tasting notes, this wine is clean, pale and bursting with the aromas of lime, chili pepper and melon. I found all this to be true except could not taste the chili flavors. This Sauvignon Blanc would be perfect on a warm summer’s evening out on the back deck and at $7.99 a bottle is a bargain price.
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| A platter of cheese and fruit to accompany the wines. |
I was surprised to hear that the employees of the vineyards still hand pick and hand harvest all the grapes. They are also still hand sorted to pick out any grapes that are discolored, any twigs or anything that would taint the wine.
The other wine that we really loved was the Reserva Malbec. According to the wine notes it is lush with flavors of plum and blackberry with notes of chocolate. This was only $10.99 a bottle and we were surprised by the price because we enjoyed it so much.
We enjoyed a delicious grilled flat bread pizza with mozzarella, roasted tomatoes and fresh torn basil. This was a great accompaniment to the wine.
Through Tim’s stories, the fantastic photos of his trip and sipping these gorgeous wines we almost felt like we were there on the journey with him. One day, hopefully, we’ll make it to the vineyard itself to have a tree fort lunch overlooking the valley and go horseback riding through the vineyards.
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| From Viu Manent |
For now, we’ll enjoy the bottles we got watching TV on the couch. Looking forward to going back to the Fruit Center again to hear another one of Tim’s Excellent Adventures.
