![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4048\/4545005422_ba0424cbe8_b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Total Miles Traveled:<\/strong> 11,975<\/p>\n Santa Cruz is located about 2 hours southwest of Santiago and about 45 minutes from the coast.\u00a0 It’s one of the key towns in Chile’s most known wine region – the Colchagua Valley.\u00a0 After getting to know Argentina’s wines and wine regions, we were excited to explore the wineries and wines in Chile.\u00a0 Although this region was close to the epicenter of Chile’s 8.8 devastating earthquake, we were told that roads and wineries were open.<\/p>\n It’s a very easy drive from Santiago and, while there are cheap buses that run multiple times a day to the area, Santa Cruz lacks local car rental agencies.\u00a0 So we rented a (toy!) car \u00a0in Santiago and made the quick jaunt down.<\/p>\n A not quite so developed wine region<\/strong><\/p>\n Santa Cruz is a small little village (though they have a casino that brings in weekend tourists from Santiago).\u00a0\u00a0 The area boasts some of Chile’s oldest and best wineries, so we were surprised that there were only a handful of hotel options.\u00a0\u00a0 Although it was a bit out of our budget, we stayed at Hotel Terravina which is a beautiful Spanish-style lodge located in the middle of a vineyard. \u00a0Here’s the view from our room – not bad eh?<\/p>\n Aftermath of the earthquake<\/strong><\/p>\n We imagine that Santa Cruz could be a very quaint and lovely village with it’s colonial and traditional Spanish style influence.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see this.\u00a0 When we arrived we quickly realized that this area suffered heavily from the earthquake.\u00a0\u00a0 We heard reports that about 30-50% of the Santa Cruz area (as high as 80% in neighboring villages) suffered major damage.<\/p>\n But, even though we were there 6 weeks after the earthquake, a lot of cleanup had already been done and roads repaired. \u00a0In fact, some of the damage to the roads were so severe (major cracks) that they destroyed the road and put down gravel instead.<\/p>\n Here are some images of the damage. \u00a0 This first one was ironic – it has a “For Sale” sign on it but most of the building behind the front facade is destroyed. \u00a0Maybe they meant the property:<\/p>\n This was in downtown Santa Cruz:<\/p>\n Most of the homes that were destroyed were made of adobe brick and the curved roof tiles you see here didn’t fare so well in general.<\/p>\n Touring the Wineries<\/strong><\/p>\n A few interesting tidbits:<\/p>\n A River of Wine – Major Damage to the Wineries<\/strong><\/p>\n We had planned to stay a few days to visit as many wineries as we could, but we quickly learned that most wineries were still closed due to damage from the earthquake.\u00a0 Less than 6 wineries were open (out of 25+ wineries).\u00a0 We went to all 6 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Some wineries lost up to 80% of their wine. \u00a0In total, 125 MILLION liters of wine were lost.<\/strong> That’s over 166 million bottles!\u00a0 If the average wine costs $10 a bottle, that means over $1.6 Billion of wine were lost!<\/p>\n Here’s Lisa in front of a couple of steel fermentation vats at the Montgras winery that had fallen in the earthquake. \u00a0They were full of wine and bolted to the floor, causing the legs to twist and then topple during the earthquake.<\/p>\n Locals described a “river of red” when these vats fell at Montgras and in other wineries.\u00a0 In one area, the wine leaked into the water table (which in some areas is only 1-2 meters below ground) so that when local residents turned on their faucets, they got wine instead of water!<\/p>\n We heard stories about how the rich wine owners helped clean up the day after the earthquake and helped rebuild their employees’ houses.\u00a0 On many occasions, we asked if \/ how we could help.\u00a0 The answer was always the same – and (we thought) was interesting… “You can help by visiting ..\u00a0 buying the wine, eating at our restaurants and telling others to come… as for rebuilding, we are doing it ourselves.”<\/p>\n And now for some photos…<\/strong><\/p>\n Here’s the vinoteca (wine library) at Montgras – amazingly, they only lost a handful of bottles during the earthquake. \u00a0This room is below ground and the bottles are merely stacked on shelves. \u00a0There was wine here that dated back to the mid 1990s, when they produced their first vintage. \u00a0And it all survived!<\/p>\n \n Here is Montes winery (pictured earlier) but from the inside. \u00a0The roof is made of concrete and until the earthquake happened, the grape sorting was done up there. \u00a0Well, rumor has it the roof was heavily damaged even though the building was built only 5 years ago. \u00a0They had spent a month repairing it and still weren’t confident enough in it to resume sorting operations above…<\/p>\n Here’s the wine storage room at Montes, built like an amphitheater. \u00a0The somewhat gimmicky thing is that they play Gregorian chant music in here – think singing to a baby in the womb. \u00a0The tour guide explained that the sound waves help settle the sediment.<\/p>\n And finally, here’s the cute animal photo of the day – a cat mom feeding her kitties:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4047\/4544383115_82013ff939_b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4020\/4544348591_e508b7d1a3_b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4009\/4544398589_f176a4330c_b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4038\/4544976654_d270cde42e_b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4053\/4544392453_781ac9cc82_b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4031\/4544365971_5c73191984_b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4051\/4545016204_20c6438f1c_b.jpg\")
\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4044\/4544994026_152bedff40_b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4008\/4544988058_afd66002a0_b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4049\/4544370177_a07fac27de_b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4050\/4545009100_d9b294f8ae_b.jpg\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4018\/4544979038_ff0927f456_b.jpg\")
<\/div>\n