Dalama Adventures Tale of two corporate types ditching their jobs and traveling the world for 14 months... check out all photos, blogs & interesting tid bits at http://www.dalama.net

The wine region of Chile produces some amazing wines, both reds and whites.  Talca, just a six hour bus ride for us from Valparaíso, has become known for it's Maule Valley, especially the reds produced from this region.  They also tout their "Ruta del Vino Valle del Maule" as a wine route well catering to wine loving gringos.  So we planned a few day stop over here, hoping to sample as many of the 16 vineyards here as we can.

Landing in the small town of Talca, one would never know it's a great wine producing region.  There are no wine bards in town, no shops catering to the "tasting" public, no specialty wine and wine paraphernalia shops, and nothing promoting a wine route to the visiting public.  The Lonely Planet guide promotes the Ruta del Vino office to book tours through, but unless you have a car, you'd never find the place, as it's 6k's from town.  On the web there are a couple of tours published on their site, costing $50 US for a half day tour that only takes you to two wineries, and it's nearly $100 US to visit three wineries... with those kind of prices we'd rather buy a few bottles of good wine here and enjoy them.  To visit the wineries is no easy feat.  First, you would need a car, as they are fairly well spread out, and there are no public transportation options to get you to the wineries.  Secondly, most of the wineries don't have tastings, and those few that do, don't allow people to randomly drop in and have a tasting.  They require you to make an appointment through the Ruta del Vino office, and then you're back to the tour monopoly.  And unless the Ruta del Vino office has a group of people, they won't allow you to take a tour.  There is also no such thing as a free tasting, and many of the wineries charge $10 and require you to take a tour... of course that's only if you're lucky enough to be admitted without a proper tour group that slaps on top their $30+ commission.  

I suppose the wine industry here is in it's infancy, compared with the more developed and commercialized industries in the US, Australia, Europe or South Africa.  Most wineries in the Maule Valley are so small and have such limited annual production, mostly exported, that they aren't really thinking about, or needing to cater to the gringo tasting traveler.  Even if they did manage to generate a great demand and brand name, they can't naturally expand or increase their production, so I guess they must figure the whole "wine-tourism" industry is just not worth their time.  Good for them, they've managed to keep many of their wineries quaint, family owned businesses, and all about the production of a few vintages of exceptional wine to be enjoyed with family and friends... but of course, bad for us, the conspicuous consumer who is here to sample the fruits of the region.

This said, we decide to take a tour with the son of our hostel owner, Jaime from Hostal del Rio.  He has put together his own version of a "low cost" wine tour.  For only $40 USD we get to visit two wineries for tours and tastings, along with being toured around to specific "cultural" sites, which consist of a handicraft shop with llamas and emus out the back feeding on the none-existent grass, and ice cream shop, and an "old" village which is really just a short street with older homes and the typical Plaza de Armas, not dissimilar to other small neighborhoods in Chile.  We're taken to the top of Cerro de la Virgen, a hilltop overlooking the city with a big plaster Virgin Patron Saint, holding baby Jesus and rosary beads).  The wine at the two wineries we visited was actually very good, and the all-Spanish tours quaint, providing insight into the history and state of the wine industry here.  All in all, an overpriced way to taste wine, but cheaper than using the city wine monopoly, and the only way for us to actually get into a couple of wineries.  There's so much potential here for wine tourism, but as I relate to our experiences here, the wine industry in the Talca and Maule Valley is like an adolescent teen, struggling with how to present the fruits of it's growth, and it will certainly take some years and lessons stumbling through experience to mature and reach it's potential in years to come.  For right now, it's nice to actually see an industry with such amazing product, not over run by commercialism and profit goals... many of these family run vineyards do it for the pure art of producing wine, and the pleasure they get from the fruits of their labor.  Pure and simple.   Nice.   Just don't expect to get to taste a good sampling of the region if you take a trip here.