Dispatches from South America – How to drink a $6 Chilean wine
December 26, 2009 By: Frogette Category: Roadtrip
So the Frog and I thought with our current proximity to Chile we’d be able to get our suckers on some great wines…cheap! We stopped into our local Super Mercado and purchased a $6 bottle of Villa Porta Estate Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. Having recently ex-patrioted ourselves from San Francisco we have fairly developed wine palates. The $6 wine? Swill. Seriously, it tasted like vinegar the night we uncorked it, and we’d let it breathe, and breathe and breathe. I’ve since discovered how you drink a $6 wine. Purchase your bottle. Take it home and uncork it, pour 1/4 of the bottle down the drain and recork (don’t evacuate the wine, trust me oxidation is key). The next day pull out the cork for 30 minutes to let wine breathe. The day after that wait 7 hours then uncork and pour into glasses. By this time your wine will be drinkable. If you’re lucky. What I can’t get over is $6 for a Chilean wine isn’t that great of a deal. I can pick them up at home for around $10. So I’m wondering, what are we doing wrong? Maybe amphibeans just shouldn’t drink…wine that is. All else is fair game at Casa de las Ranas!
December 26th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Perhaps the wine thought it was supposed to be used for sautéing frog legs. ;-)
December 26th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Shows you shouldn’t buy wine from a region that Chile took from Peru by force! Buy Pisco instead.
Yo Amo Peru :)
December 26th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
TomCat – Frog legs?! Gulp!
Matt – You’re right about the pisco, had a pisco sour the other night. Ah me mi gusta!
December 26th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
My exile to rural Victoria (Aust) landed me in wine heaven. Mind you, with these small vinters $6 a bottle isn’t on, but we have our ways of accessing ‘to die for’ shiraz and merlot. Never did find SA wines especially drinkable.
December 26th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Cartledge – Do you ship? ;-)
December 26th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Take up homebrewing. It’s more satisfying and you get as good as you give and usually for cheaper than store-bought.
December 26th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Frogette, I guess you’d better wait until you get here. Then I will introduce you to the vinters – no $65 a bottle and no shipping :)
December 28th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Thomas – I wish! Our kitchen here is just too small. Perhaps we could set up a still on the patio though…
Cartledge – Definitely going to take you up on that offer!
December 28th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Far too much work to get blotto.
December 28th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Randal – Well we could just try fermenting sugar cane.
December 28th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Frogette, a true connoisseur never gulps frog legs. They are best nibbled. ;-)
January 6th, 2010 at 8:55 am
pisco sour! a mi me gusta tambien!
January 6th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
I recently found a design for a very simple still design, one guaranteed to confound the excise man. It is simply three metal bowls, one to evaporate the alcohol medium, the second a floating collector and the third sits on top as an evaporator dripping back into the collector. I’ll let you know how it works :)
Such is life when you are isolated in rural parts…
January 7th, 2010 at 9:04 am
No Blood for Hubris – You’re so right, the pisco sours are out of this world!
Cartledge – You are a clever, clever man. Can’t wait to sample your moonshine. :-)