We meet our crew (Diane, Heinz, Steve and Janet) at 9:00am for our transfer from Santiago to San Antonio and the Celebrity Eclipse. On the way, though, we are visiting a winery in Casablanca for a wine tour and tasting. Great way to get to the ship! Daniella is our tour/transfer guide – she picked up everyone in this group (and another big cruise critic group) from the airport, so they everyone is happy and comfortable with her. She and her husband organize us all into a few vans and off we go. The hour plus ride to the winery flies by, with all of us chatting and talking away as the scenery changes from urban/city to rural/farmland. We turn off at the main Casablanca exit and make our way through the little town streets, passing closely spaced adobe houses, and people starting their day. The street quickly turns into a country lane running through the vineyard fields, and before we know it, we arrive at Casas del Bosque for our tour and tasting.
Christopher, our tour guide, greets us and takes us on a quick visit to a viewing platform over the vineyards. He tells us about the family who owns the vineyards (Italian, came here in the ‘80s, maybe, and started the vineyard), which has grown to 227 hectares (about 560 acres) with 6 grape varietals ranging from Sauvignon Blanc (by far the majority) to Malbec (just started growing up on the hillside). Christopher shows us a a map of the property showing all the vines, and which grape is planted in which area, with explanations of why the planting location is important (Malbec on the hillside to get more cool temperatures, etc.). It is a beautiful day, sunny and pleasant, and the vineyards are gorgeous in the sun. Christopher says we are lucky today because it is either ridiculously hot or ridiculously cold in Casablanca and days like today are rare.
After learning about the vines and the planting plans, we move toward the processing part of the winery, where we stand around the one grape crushing machine they have (they produce over 1 million bottles of wine a year and with only 1 crusher machine? That machine must get a work out)learning about the process, then move inside to the huge vats they use for fermentation, finally finishing in the the aging room where hundreds of oak barrels are currently aging all sorts of wine. He explains how the barrels are turned, and how wine gases are released, then more wine is added into the barrels to keep them full. That wine tends to drip down the sides of the barrels, which is why they have a red “stripe” down the center. We can tell newer barrels from older ones by looking at the depth of the color – deep reds are older barrels, light pinks are newer.
One of the totally interesting things we learned is that they use egg whites to clarify the wines. One egg white per barrel does the trick, and they separate each egg by hand, selling the yolks to the local bakeries in town. Nothing goes to waste! Also, that means everything is natural in the wines, no sulfites are used (which makes me think that maybe the sulfites in the wines we get in the states are the cause of my hot flashes since I didn’t have a single one while we were in India or SE Asia, but started immediately when I got home, hmmmm….).
Our group is then escorted into the tasting room where there is a totally creative map of the vineyard on the wall, with bottles of wine in placed into locations where the actual grape is grown. Brilliant! We taste 4 wines – Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Syrah – all excellent – and that is saying something from someone who can’t stand Chardonnay and doesn’t particularly like red wines! There are about 16 of us on the tour, the other 10 all just got off the Eclipse (too funny), so as we leave we get instructions on the good bartenders (and to take back a message to one of them that Stephanie – a very cute 20-something – says hello – that should make his day!).
Following Christopher into the gift shop, we have our special Riesling tasting that Daniella has arranged just for us, – which is excellent, so good in fact that we buy a bottle of the Riesling, as well as the Sauvignon Blanc, to take onto the ship with us. As we are leaving, the place is really filling up, making us very glad we were here early and pretty much had the vineyard to ourselves.
The ride to the port takes another hour or so, and after paying for our tour and transfer, we are dropped off into the hustle and bustle of the cruise terminal. We get our handwritten luggage tags after a little confusion (we are manually checked off a huge manifest print out), then head into the check in area to the Elite Plus line, which is crazy long (and has line jumpers who are annoying). As we stand there, somehow we get into a discussion with New Jersey (and Florida) couple who have decided they want to move to Asheville (Oh God, really?). We tell them, as nicely as we possibly can, that they need to really do some investigation before making the move, come and stay for a couple of months to feel out the place, etc. Sigh. Will it ever end?
Finally, we are at the check in counter, where an adorable port consultant (who will remain nameless so as not to cause him any trouble) checks us in after laughing with us about the “stupid” notice that is on the counter (and that we received via email) about not drinking the water in South American cities. Oh come on! He’s pretty funny about it, as are we, and once we have our keycards and are ready to leave, he says, “Now, remember, don’t drink the water!”
Boarding takes a while to go through security and then onto buses that take us to the ship. The line is crazy long to get on, due to a back up in the buses and the steep gangway leading to the ship. As we sit in the bus, we watch the port guys loading the luggage onto the ship – from little flatbed trucks! They can’t hold more than 50 bags at a time, and we are thinking we’ll never sail on time – or get our bags at the rate they are going! Geez. Once we are onboard everything is smooth as silk as we grab our mimosas (hand made – “shh, don’t tell anyone” says the server who had to pour rose champagne into the orange juice) and head straight to our cabin, dumping our backpacks and wine, then walking upstairs for lunch.
Surprisingly, it isn’t a zoo review upstairs, and we have a very nice lunch, then wander about the ship, returning to the cabin to meet our steward, Lawry, then attending the muster drill (where they have this stupid emergency video that hardly anyone paid attention to and is, in our opinion, way too “cutesy” to get the point across about what to actually do in an emergency) and finally getting our luggage and heading to the gym. Afterward, our first dinner in Blu was wonderful – the food there is definitely a cut above (and abundant, my steak salad consisted of a huge steak and a little salad!), the show was a “danger” juggler (no welcome aboard show, odd) who was good, and that was the end of our evening!
Tomorrow – Coquimbo and La Serena.
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