We slept long and hard. Wow. 11 hours – we were really tired. And the only thing that woke us was a car alarm in the middle of the night (thankfully not ours) and the dumb dog barking early in the morning (dog-burgers if I ever get my hands on the mutt). We wake to a fabulous sunrise (that we should have taken pictures of because Luka and Nina said they haven’t seen it like that in weeks – always foggy in the mornings).
We drag ourselves out of bed and down to breakfast – for excellent drip coffee – yum – and a fantastically huge and satisfying breakfast of fried eggs for Ed and pancrepes for me. OMG, I’ll never eat again!
The pancrepes are a luscious cross between pancakes and not really crepes, but almost scones maybe? They are thick and fluffy, and topped with sweet cream, served along side Nina’s homemade plum jam and nutella. Yum! I’m only hoping I’ll be able to eat lunch today!
Which brings me to today’s excursion – La Recova vineyard in Casablanca. We’ve researched all the vineyards and they all look great – except one that ages everything in oak barrels. Not. Every vineyard makes Sauvignon Blanc, so I’m obviously happy, but they all sound like the typical vineyard experience. Tour, tasting, some have other activities (like doing the harvest, horseback riding, picnics, etc.) and we really can’t decide which to visit. We’d asked Nina (via email) for recommendations – they can get us a driver for under $100 to take us to 2 vineyards – but she never replied (as it turns out, they’ve not been to the vineyards yet, so they don’t really have any personal recommendations). Thus, we are on our own.
There was one vineyard that I found that looked totally different. Small business, one owner, invites you into his home and gives you a personal tour around the vineyards, plus will cook you a duck breast lunch. There isn’t much information about the place, his Facebook page which is all in Spanish and not much info for us non-native speakers. I decided to email him before we left, and he said he had space for a tour on Thursday. This was the day we thought we’d have a driver, so we weren’t sure what to do. We texted back and forth a bit, times, dates, places, settling on details - and in the end went ahead and booked with David at La Recova for Thursday at noon.
La Recova is set up in the hills away from the main town of Casablanca proper. As a matter of fact, from Valpo, you turn off highway 68 well before Casablanca. David had sent me directions (which were fantastic – and included pictures which made all the difference in the world), so we dutifully took the Las Dichas exit and started our journey up and down in the hills and valleys. We traversed lots small country lanes, one lane bridges and drove through some lovely, scenic territory. We drive the 20+ km with no troubles and spot the vineyards stretching up the mountainside as we round the last bend. We are extremely early though (David had originally said 1pm – but we worried that was too late for lunch, and he agreed to 12 noon), and since David is accommodating us early to begin with, we didn’t want to impose. So, we drove to the end of the road, for the scenery, but really to waste time, and made it back to La Recova with a few minutes to spare.
There are no signs announcing the vineyard, we just matched the picture on the instructions. So we are hoping we are in the right place. We can’t drive up the road because they are in the process of grading it with a backhoe. We park at the bottom of the drive, and walk up to see if we are in the right place. It is (phew!) and David comes down from the upper fields to greet us with hugs and kisses all around.
A wonderfully personable and knowledgeable guy, David invites us into his house and sits us down for a little history and overview of the vineyard. Originally from Brazil, David came to the area when for an engineering job in Valpo. He became tired of paying expensive rent in town, and decided to move out into the country. He bought the property from a family that had owned it for generations, built a house for himself to live and began commuting into town for his job. Because Casablanca has such a wine culture, he became interested in the science of winemaking. And, being an engineer, thought the process intriguing enough to make him want to learn all he could about it.
He began researching and learning and taking classes, and decided to begin his own vineyard here in the hills. While Chile has a reputation for winemaking, he (and others like him now) began making “new Chilean” wine – new processes, smaller vineyards, different techniques that produce different tastes. It’s very innovative, and the winery he has creative matches the philosophy. He takes us outside to walk the vines – where David explains the grapes, the hand harvesting and what to look for and taste to see if grapes are ready to harvest. The grapes here are very small, not the larger “globe” grapes that produce more quantity of wine.
He explains the smaller grapes have better concentration of sugar and fruit flavor, which makes for a better tasting wine. After exploring the fields, we move onto his distilling room – which he created in two shipping containers. Pretty ingenious!
The grapes are harvested and put through a small separator from the roof of the containers, then they are squeezed and transferred to one of the stainless steel tanks to begin the winemaking process. David can access the tanks from the roof of the containers as well and he shows us how he can check on the process of each tank through a trap door he has created.
We get to go inside the winery-containers and sample a sparkling base that is currently being fermented. It’s very sweet and tingly. Plus we get a taste of the grape juice before the fermentation process begins. There are more explanations I won’t bore you with, but suffice it to say, the whole operation – run by David and 2 partners – is incredibly interested. Very entrepreneurial and innovative– which of course strikes a chord with us.
The three of us troop through the vines a bit more, then go up to the patio/deck area set up above the water holding tank (which could easily be confused with a pool up on a ridge – especially after a couple of bottles of wine!). Here, we set up camp for lunch with fabulous views across the valley.
We open up a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and one of rose, called “obstinado” which is a special blend David makes with the Sauvignon Blanc base.
As we relax in the sun, he plies us with empanadas while he goes back to the house to prepare the duck tartar.
The next few hours pass in a blur of great food, friendship and conversation. We talk and eat our way through bruschetta, local cheese and crackelets (saltine crackers), then the main event of duck tartar, salad with local tomatoes, seared duck breast (from the local organic duck farmer down the road and prepared to perfection by David).
The afternoon just evaporates as we touch on every subject imaginable, from wine making (of course) to traveling (again, of course) to politics and festivals and events and people – and well just a nice afternoon spent with great company. After sharing our dessert of fresh fruit, with local honey and jam, with the neighbor’s bees (the neighbor on the next hill past the end of the vineyard rents out his property to people with bee hives, and once we open the honey, the swarms arrive – amazingly so!)…
…we wander up the main road, in search of mora (blackberries). It is too late in the season, so we only find a very few berries left over from the birds. But we still manage to pop a few little morsels into our mouths.
Back to the house we go, where David shows us how he labels and puts the foil cap onto each and every one of his 100,000 bottles. Talk about handmade! I get to try my hand at it too – only the bottle is on backwards, so the label ends up upside down! Too funny. We do another one, and I get to cap it as well. Then David signs the bottle and gives it to us as a gift. So sweet! If only we weren’t flying home – we’d buy lots more to take with us…darn those airline rules!
After chatting for a bit more, we regretfully move toward our car to make our way back to Valpo. It is so lovely and peaceful here, you really don’t want to leave. We can see why David settled here and loves it. What a great way and place to live – and for us we couldn't think of a better way to spend a day. We are so glad we found David and La Recova and were able to make arrangements for our visit. In all our travels we can categorize our experiences as “ok” days, good days and excellent days – today was beyond excellent.
We actually make it back to Costa Azul with absolutely no problems (even stopping at a grocery store on the way!). It’s after 6 when we return, and we decide we are not eating tonight, just snacking. So after a bit of relaxation in our room, we head downstairs to the kitchen/dining room and set up shop in our corner table. Beer, wine, cheese, chorizo and crackers – and lots of great conversation with Nina and Luka (before the dinner crowd descends!).
Then up to our lovely corner view room for a good night’s rest after a fabulous day.
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