Wonderful Wine Experience in Chile

Chile | Sep 2 - Sep 8, 2026

This hotel is comfortable and clean. It is located in Vitacura, which is a very high-end mainly residential and commercial neighborhood in Santiago. There are very good restaurants and shopping nearby. You are, however, quite far away from the old historic parts of the city, and there is no convenient subway line to the Vitacura neighborhood, making you reliant on the bus system, taxis, or a private car. If you are looking to be close to the old city, this might not be the accomodation you want, but if the new district and the nightlife and restaurants are what you are looking for, this is a very good choice. The staff were friendly and able to understand my poor Spanish!

Actually, we would take another visit to Pirque just to stay at this hotel. It has a large internal garden, beautiful walking areas, clean and comfortable rooms, and a very good restaurant. We only were here for one night but in the future I might change that. It's close to the wineries of Concha y Toro and Santa Rita.

A real treat of a hotel in Colchuagua Valley, near to several wineries and with a lovely garden area. The restaurant was amazing. While it did get chilly at night - the rooms have extremely high ceilings - the heated bathroom floor and the thick covers were fine.

This was really one of the highlights of our trip, to be brought into someone's home and be cooked a local meal and learn how to make common traditional dishes. We always enjoy experiencing real native food and this was a very good choice.

Santa Rita winery This is the second largest winery in Chile with a very large tour, and there are many different facets of the tour that has different appeals to different people. The tour itself goes through the very extensive gardens which are very attractive. It includes a look at the chapel and the former home which is now a boutique hotel. Admission to the former home is restricted to people who are spending the night at the hotel. The tour then includes a look at the cellar, the cellar facilities and has a brief historical video of the famous cellar that hid the 120 patriots of Bernardo O'Higgins, the Chilean independence leader. The winery has a very large restaurant which is excellent. The wine store is extensive. There is also a museum which we did not go into. This tour could easily take one hour to complete with tasting, not including the museum or any food in the restaurant. Although this is a long tour and a large area to walk around, I do think it is a very good tour and was one of the best traditional winery tours we took. Concha y Toro This is the largest winery in Chile, one of the largest in the entire world, and it is the most visited. The area is immense. It is very, very crowded and often over-crowded in many places with so many visitors. The winery has spent a lot of money building a new wine experience tour and frankly, I am not sure that it is really worth it. There is an enormous amount of educational, and then what I would refer to as infotainment with the legend of Don Melchior and the Casillero del Diablo as the featured attraction. It was very over the top and seemed very Disney-fied to us. Perhaps some tourists would appreciate this, but we did not find it added anything to our experience. I would also say that at Concha y Toro, there were many employees, but none of the employees we met had worked at the winery for a full year - almost everyone was six months or less, whereas most other wineries had guides who had been employed for many years. As such, the new guides often seemed a little confused or overwhelmed at times. I’m not certain if this is simply because it’s so big, but I would be hesitant to send anyone on this tour without first alerting them to the size and the type of experience that they were going to get.

This was a very unique experience. The owners of this relatively young label are eccentric and have a property that reflects their eccentricities. Part of the tour involves a car tour up the side of the mountain over which much of the production can be seen and photographs can be taken of the main building. We found this tour guide to be the best of all of our tour guides she was very good about engaging with my wife, whereas most of the tour guides looked and spoke to me and did not speak to my wife directly during much of the tasting. The winery is a little different from others in the owner's eccentricities, but it is a very pleasant experience and one we certainly see it as a "must" stop in Colchuaga Valley. We did not eat at the restaurant, which originally we were planning on doing (we were SO full from breakfast), so I cannot give a report on the restaurant. It looked wonderful overall.

This tour includes a horseback buggy, which can be a little shaky and jolting for older passengers. Climbing into the buggy can be a challenge for people who are mobility impaired. The tour goes around the Vineyards to the main winery and then back to the main area for tasting. We enjoyed the tour and tastings. We did not stop at the restaurant, but it was absolutely PACKED with people who seemed to be greatly enjoying their meals. There was a large space outside for children to run around and play safely.

I have to confess that we did not do the private city tour. We were exhausted from our flight to Chile and did not have the strength to take the tour. The guide did come back the next day to tour with us for the food tour, and she was very kind and accommodative.

The tour is not very large - the wine shop to the fields to the production facility to the cellars is a very short walk. If you are mobility impaired this is a good choice as there will not be a lot of walking. The owner's collection of classic cars is included in the experience, which makes a nice addition.

The very high slopes at this vineyard meant that we did not have a horse or car tour around the wineries like we did with the others. The tour was still quite enjoyable. We also found that this winery is a bit more experimental in the way that they approach and make wine. It's a young winery with interesting new techniques and it is very different from Montes, Viu Manent, or Santa Rita.