(ominous music) (footsteps trundling) (ominous music) (engine turns over) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is a place where the wind wakes before the sun, where the mountains scrape against the sky, where vineyards cling to impossible slopes, and the ocean leaps out on the leaves.

This is a country that stretches thin, long and lean like a vine, reaching for light.

(upbeat music) And for Jack, our guide on this journey, a journey of discovering the wild world of Chilean wines.

- [Jack] I'm Jack Kaufman, sommelier and filmmaker, and I'm going to take you on a journey through some of the most unique wine projects happening right now in Chile.

We're going to learn about key concepts that make wines of Chile so unique, including phylloxera, rootstock, ocean current, and of course terroir.

We're gonna visit five wineries in particular and dine with fascinating individuals to create a bigger understanding of what Chile is all about in the world of food and wine.

(upbeat music) So we're at Vik's Natural wine making project Stonevik, with the winemaker, Cristian.

This is a very special, unique place.

Let's go check it out.

- So you see this place so calm.

- I can feel the energy.

I mean, it's like an uneasy calmness in a weird way, but it's, you have to settle into it.

- When we start to look for a place for this, and we found this spot where the trees were forming a circle was so surprising.

And when we get in here, you feel an energy.

So we need to understand what happens.

So that's why we bring a geologist and he make a big research with those electrical devices and all that, that technology that they use.

And he found there is a fault across this way.

And there are a water table that crossed that way and that generates a magnetic resonance, that's a circular wave that pulls like this.

And that's the reason why the trees are forming the circle.

And when you look up, you see that the branches, they don't go to inside, they go to outside.

- Yeah.

- So this is kind of a dome, it's incredible.

And then in that hole, in the middle, during the night, normally Orion, it's a line there, so it's amazing.

And this was in front of our eyes and we didn't see it till when we get here, right?

It's amazing.

So that's why we bring an astronomist to help us to align the amphora like a Stonehenge.

So during the solstice of the summer, all of them align and all the shadows go in the same way, and we have this path of light.

And that's the way that we get connected with nature here.

- And this fault and this waterway goes right underneath here, this is the intersection underneath the stone?

- Yeah, the center of the rock.

You see that point in the middle?

- Yeah, right here, yeah.

- That's the intersection between the fault that is doing this and the water table.

That generates this pulse.

- That pulse.

- Yeah.

For us, it's the way that it represent how we made our wine.

With, through and for nature.

(upbeat music) Well, we have here two parcels of Carbenet Sauvignon in the middle of the coastal range, which is the oldest soil in Chile, 150 million years.

- And it's older than the Andes itself.

- It is, the Andes is 80 million years.

And here we have two parcels where we planted it with different type of rootstocks, and they're just neighbors.

And we'll see that they taste a little bit different and they're just- - [Jack] Just right next to each other.

Well lead the way.

- Let's do it.

- Let's do it.

First you see the, if they drop a little bit of juice.

So not that much, you see?

So that means that it will be very concentrated when you put it in your mouth.

You macerate, you see the flavor.

- The acid first, right?

- The acidity.

The aromas from the skin.

And you see the color and the seeds is very important.

They have to be very like an almond.

- Oh yeah, it's a proper crunch to it.

- It is.

That means that the grapes are ready, and if we go to this side, which is another soil, you see the bunches are a little bit smaller.

- [Jack] Oh, it's almost a little different acid too.

- Yeah, and a bit more acid than this one.

And explode a little bit with more aromas, like more fruit at the first bite.

- So we're talking same grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon, just right here, different soils.

- Different soils.

Wine is about art, passion and also that little precision or that little moment that makes the difference.

- [Jack] I couldn't agree more.

(bright upbeat music) - We are at Vik's Farm To Table, Vik Zero.

This is as farm to table as it gets.

Let's check it out.

Priscilla!

(Jack and Priscilla speak Spanish) (waiter speaks Spanish) (Jack and Priscilla speak Spanish) - This is like the craziest lettuce I've had.

- Yeah.

- I don't, it's just what's unique is its complexity.

I don't usually think about lettuce.

(Jack and Priscilla speak Spanish) - [Narrator] The day show us what we already know, but the night reveals something more.

With the night, harvest at Vik taking Jack behind the veil and into the starry tapestry.

(Cristian and workers speak Spanish) (people applaud) (pensive music) - Just to understand why we are harvesting during the night.

Grab the grapes, they're cold, right?

- Oh yeah, - Yeah, so they're getting naturally at 10 degrees Celsius and they will arrive at that temperature and when they arrive into the tank, everything, the whole thing will be homogeneously at 10 degrees Celsius and we don't spend energy to do that, so it's very sustainable, that's the first thing.

And then the second during the crush, everything works better.

For example, when they're cold, they cut off very easy.

So you have less piece of stems in the tank, right?

And then the crusher, this is very funny 'cause the crusher, they touch berries and they get open, so that's why I call the Pac-Man effort.

So they get it open like this.

- Look at that, literally like Pac-Man.

- Like a Pac-Man.

And the last point is that everything's in the tank then, when they arrive are 10 degrees Celsius.

So when you cool down the grapes, some part of them could be at five degrees, zero degrees, 20 degrees.

The ones that they're at 20 degrees, they start to ferment.

And then you can have some flavors that they're not good, you know?

So it's like for three reasons, very important.

- Yeah, I knew it was always to keep cool, but I didn't realize the total extent to all this.

- Yeah, it's details makes the difference, right?

- Absolutely.

(upbeat music) - And so for me, the Orion's upside down.

- Yeah, absolutely, it is, yeah.

- [Jack] It's crazy.

Yeah, to you, it's not.

- Yeah.

My mind's racing.

Okay, so as a huge fan of stargazing and being in the Elqui Valley, we have some incredible stars and I decided we needed to capture this here.

So we're with Nomade, organization that does stargazing, they specialize in it.

And we're in the vineyards and we're gonna see what we can capture tonight.

Let's check it out.

- This one is the greatest one that we can see through the telescope, okay?

That is located in a very south, south and south sky.

10 million stars, okay?

Located at 18,000 light years away from us.

- Wow.

- [Guide] It's the biggest global cluster in our milky way.

This one is just from.

- We cannot know if it will pass something to the wine.

I cannot imagine that with this permanent sky, all the heads of the plants, okay?

You would not pass something right now.

- I think you're onto something, I think you're absolutely right.

(upbeat music) - Since here in Alcohuaz, we have a lot of radiation, so a lot of light exposure.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Skin tends to be more thicker than regular.

So we do have by naturally, a lot of color tannins and everything.

So this is like the most gentle way to extract.

- It's kind of therapeutic.

- It is.

It's like a spa.

- Yeah, it is.

Looks like I've been attacked.

- Yeah.

Nice color.

- Look at that, that's like a beautiful.

- Pretty much done.

I'm gonna measure the temperature density to see how we're doing.

And do a little bit more here.

- Perfect.

Thank you.

So this is telling us that fermentation is pretty good.

Maybe this is the last time we're gonna stomp, I don't know if you want to try this.

- Sure.

- Tastes like my feet.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Elqui is where wine meets the cosmos.

This is the highest attitude wine region in Chile.

And the wines here are as enchanting as the stars above.

- She just told me we're gonna stop here, said she's gonna refill her water in the stream.

Definitely wanna get that on camera, that's like straight glacial water.

So this is the stream that feeds the water to the whole winery just down the way in Pinta.

And it's pure glacial stream water, I mean it's totally fresh to drink.

So we're just getting a little refill before we go up higher to the vineyard.

- The best water in the world.

(water rushes past) - Nice, love it.

All right, back on the road to the vineyard.

- [Narrator] They say there is a portal in the north of Chile, a concave convex breaching the sky membrane where divinity and humanity connect.

When looking up to the order offered by the stars, it is clear that here the word territory is the union of earth and sky.

(dramatic music) - We're at about 7,200 feet above sea level.

I can definitely feel it.

And the increased exposure from the sun, it's intense up here, but it's probably pretty intense for the vines as well.

- Yeah, exactly.

So it's pretty high for life in general.

- So let's try some wines from this vineyard right here.

- This is a hundred percent Garnacha.

Elqui valley is a really hot area, but since we are in altitude, we can gain that natural acidity so the grapes mature more slowly than in a hot region.

So we get that tension and that minerality in a way of this place as well.

- And it's obviously very dry here, but there's still a nice slope for drainage.

Does it occasionally rain or like what do you do about irrigation?

- Inside the mountains there's a glacier that brings water like naturally.

- You definitely do a lot of old time stuff between the foot stomping, the gravity fed winery operation, incredible.

- Yeah, exactly, we don't need the machines.

- No.

Down with the machine.

- Down with the machines.

And this one will have like a hundred percent whole cluster.

- You can smell it right away.

But because it's so raw, it's like a muddled up like blackberry.

But it's again like an under ripe, muddled up blackberry.

- Yeah, it also has a lot of white pepper, pink pepper.

Because the first year that they made this wine, which is 2011, the first vintage, this is an unusual wine, this is- - Yeah, it is unusual.

- Cariñena, which is that block over there.

And this might be the highest Cariñena planted in the world, we have no idea of that.

- How about that?

You guys heard it, highest Cariñena in the world.

- This wine, since Cariñena is a really rustic variety, it has like naturally really high acid, here in altitude has like more acid than the common thing.

What we do here is that we age the wine for seven years.

- The acid just.

- Yeah, yeah.

This vintage was a really good vintage as well, 2018.

- Wow, I think I'm gonna need two cases of this wine.

- Yeah.

And everything here is really expressive because of light exposure.

So if you eat any fruit, any vegetables that is grown here, you will have a lot of aromatics.

- So speaking of that, are there foods native to this specific area that you would pair with this wine?

- That's a good one.

I think here in this area is really common, the goat cheese.

- Yeah.

- Or the goat.

- Yeah, well I mean talk about lots of acid in that cheese, right?

And it would definitely go with the acid in that.

- So I always like to have these wines with cheese, especially this goat cheese in here in Alcohaz, which is really cool.

- You grill it, right?

- Yeah, we grill it too.

- We tried it together last night, it was really good.

- That was good.

- And also the goat itself I think is a good kind of meat for this type of wine because it's kind of rustic, you know?

- Yeah, yeah.

- It's also really special because it's the last variant that we pick.

So it's like the one that we suffer the most in a way.

And this is the wine that we keep the longest, like in order to build it up- - [Jack] The most effort.

- [Narrator] Yeah, exactly, but I think it's worth it.

- [Jack] I'd say so.

- [Narrator] The effort.

- [Narrator] We have a good history of like old vines came from the Spanish people.

This area, particularly the north, was one of the first places that they were like the vineyard started here.

So there's a lot of an historical input that nobody kind of knows much.

Like people here in Chile used to drink a lot of wine.

Nowadays they're not drinking wine.

So it's an important commitment to like start to educating again, et cetera, et cetera.

And to be, to make people belong to their history, you know?

Like here, and especially in Elqui, like the wines and the wine and the pisco is a part of people's life.

Our last one will like our high-end wine.

This wine is called Rhu and- - It's your shirt too, right?

- Exactly, yeah, I'm in the Rhu shirt.

- I'm gonna need one of those shirts for sure.

- You're gonna get one of these shirts.

- I just got some eucalyptus.

- Yeah, true.

- Still haven't even tasted, I just keep smelling it.

I love it.

I could probably live here.

- Yeah, you should, you should move here... - Maybe I'll move here with... - maybe I'll come do a harvest at least.

- Yeah, you have to.

No, really.

- I think I will, don't temp me 'cause I will show up for it.

- We always take people like for a couple of weeks to help us because we need the help.

And we give wine and like food and so you're gonna have a blast.

- Okay, I will show up, so get ready.

(pensive music) - Wow.

- Yeah.

- This is a unique room.

- It is.

- I see the oval shape.

Yeah, so the shape, the oval shape will be, what's the meaning of Rhu?

Remember that I, when we taste the wine.

- Right.

- So Rhu will be this portal that connects the divine world with the human, with the human and the flesh world.

So it's also like the shape of a vagina because we were born through it in order to become- - The origin of the world.

- Exactly.

So that's why we have it all over the place in the shapes of the eggs, the oval part on top.

The fudres in this place.

So we try to be connected the whole time with the thing.

- [Jack] I love it.

- You only have to worry if there's an earthquake.

Just in case.

But because the gravity is so like in an alterate state that it's kind of like sandy.

- In the event of an earthquake, we don't want to be in here, potentially.

- That's the only shame, yeah.

Because we do want to be here.

- Of course, yeah.

- But we should not be here.

- Yeah.

So we're in Chile to tell the story of Chilean wine, but the story of Chilean wine is incomplete without the story of Pisco.

Now you're asking yourself why Pisco?

Well, Pisco is made from grapes and actually moreover, it's made from fermented grapes.

It's made from wine, but then it's distilled like a spirit.

It's a neutral grape spirit.

And so we've definitely gotta address it.

Let's check it out.

So right here is where the truck comes, offloads the grapes.

So in here is the crusher-destemmer.

This has been continually running and in use since 1960.

This is some old school tech and they're keeping it running.

So, so far the process is still just like wine.

You gotta crush and de-stem the grapes.

And then you put them into big old tanks to ferment.

Let's see where it goes from here.

The smell, you get kind of some volatile acidity and everything.

So just in here are the distillation tanks.

This is a classic distillation situation.

Now we're gonna look at actually what the source of the heat is.

So they've got a pretty hot kiln going almost all hours of the day.

And this boils water up in this tank.

Let's actually get a little more firewood in here, kind of up a bit.

Well now it's time for the best part in any one of these tours, let's go taste the Pisco itself.

- How are you Jack?

- Good, how are you?

- Very good.

It's a meeting place that was built end of the 1800s.

- Salud.

- Salud.

- That's smooth, smoother than I expected.

- Yeah, and also it's very aromatic.

All the traditional processes that you saw are focused on preserving the aromas from the fruit and bringing it to the alcohol.

- So how do you like to drink it?

- Drink it on its own, but also blend it with some soda of your- - Piscola.

- Yeah, Piscola for example.

But also every time I serve a Piscola, I serve like my glass, some ice, pisco, it takes a sips alone, and then I- - [Jack] Then you add the cola.

- [Narrator] Following the dizzingly high elevation of Elqui, Jack found himself back at a reasonable altitude among some of the oldest vine in the country.

Looked after by one of the great families of Chile.

- If I'm correct, these vines here are 1912?

- Exactly.

- Geez.

- 1912 is one of the oldest vineyard that we have in this state.

This is Angostura state from Casa Silva winery.

As you can see, very old pines, very small yield.

And this is Sauvignon Gris, maybe it sounds strange for you.

- Yeah, it does.

- But Sauvignon Gris is a natural mutation of Sauvignon Blanc.

It's supposed to be from Bordeaux.

And the name is basically from the color of the, of the skin of the grape, if you see a little bit like green.

- Yeah, a little gray, yeah.

And I'm noticing, speaking of 1912, I mean how gnarly these roots are.

Can we just get a closer look at this?

This is just nuts.

- Very, very nice, you see?

- It's huge.

- So we harvest this [Indistinct] but very, very old, you can see.

- Yeah, this is- - Small.

- This is like a tree trunk, I mean it's like crazy.

And it's original rootstock, yeah?

- Yeah, exactly.

And Chile as you know, we don't have a phylloxera.

Why we don't have it, dunno why, but it's supposed to be for the natural barrel that we have.

- Couldn't make it over the Andes mountains.

- Exactly, exactly.

So we have the most driest desert in the world in Atacama.

- Atacama and the highest elevation desert at the same time.

- Exactly, and we have the Patagonia.

So everything is frozen.

- Chile is essentially its own island in the continent.

- Exactly.

(upbeat music) So tell me a little bit about the place we're in and let me just say as soon as I walked in, the smells in here are are quite intense and enthralling.

- It's because we are in the fermenting process.

This was built, you know, in the end of 18's, so it's quite old.

- [Jack] End of the 18 hundreds?

- Yeah, but we have everything here in the center.

I mean the human capital, all the technology, this amazing and beautiful guy.

- Muy guapo, heh?

Muy guapo.

- Where is this intersection between tradition and modern wine making?

- Well, I think the modern wine making is very important to, to improve your wines because you need to improve every day.

And of course we are a winery that produce classic wine.

So we try to do our best every time using the technology from one hand and from the other hand, try to keep the tradition, but always in the current way to, to have a very, we say healthy wines, good quality wines.

Wine that you can drink today, maybe keep for 20, 30 years without any problem.

- Fantastic.

- So yeah.

- Here, I mean, again, I'm just, the smells are wonderful.

It's the history with it, just the feeling of it, the sight of it is very unique.

- Welcome again to Casa Silva, to our restaurant.

We want to show you a few dishes that we make in this beautiful place.

Dominga is from the sixth generation of the family.

So it's - [Jack] Wow, fantastic.

- So we have here crab with all the vegetables from the area.

This is tuna ceviche, gherkin panas and queso fresco, it's really traditional.

(speaks Spanish) - Oh, zipping acid.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- It wound up at the back of my palate and then like zipped into the front of the tongue.

Wow.

- Yeah, it's an amazing wine.

Of course when you talk about Argentina, you talk about Malbec, but Chile is more than that.

Chile is known because of Cabernet Sauvignon.

We produce more Cabernet Sauvignon, we import more Cabernet Sauvignon and we drink more Cabernet Sauvignon.

So of course it's very important for us, it's like our flag.

But we have a lot of great varieties in very high quality.

- [Narrator] The heritage of the Silva family runs deeper than the vines to the depths of the rodeo and Puoli tradition, firmly ingrained in the land and intertwined in their hearts.

Dominga says it best herself.

(Dominga speaks Spanish) [horse neighs loudly] [Dominga continues in Spanish] [horse neighing and sounds of hooves in gravel] [Dominga continues in Spanish] [jiggling of bells, horse neighing ] [Dominga continues in Spanish] (upbeat music) [horses hooves on ground, neighing, bells Jingling] [dramatic, upbeat pan flute music] - [Narrator] From the wild rodeos of the rural countryside to the urban slopes of Valparaiso, this country never ceases to amaze.

- So we're in Valparaiso with Camila owner here at WineBox Hotel.

And Camilla has prepared a really cool wine tasting for us.

- Also, basically here at WineBox, we want people to come and try like different wine varieties that are not very like well known as Chilean in other places in the world.

So I wanted to start with Pedro Ximénez, which is a Spanish grape variety.

Normally it's used with like in Spain to make a sherry or sweet wine.

And in Chile it is mostly used to make Pisco, but here we find like this very nice dry Pedro Ximénez wine, which is really nice like just to drink it by itself, or like have like a platter or like some fish, it's like, it goes really well with different kind of meals.

- Something you told me before we went on camera earlier, you guys don't serve any Carménère here?

- No, we don't sell Carménère.

- So why not?

- Just like, no, because people come to Chile and they only want to drink Carménère and we want them to come here and try like all the varieties and diverse wines that we have in Chile, we have very interesting and passionate projects.

We are not saying that Carménère is not good.

It's, you can find really good Carménère in Chile, but we want people to go farther, you know?

- Yeah, yeah, well I appreciate and I agree.

I think it's a good initiative.

- Yeah.

- Oh, cheers, let's taste this first one.

- Salud - Salud - First thing I try, yeah, it's like key lime pie.

It's like salty and like... - Oh, I love that.

- [Camila] What do you think?

- The palate confirms the nose.

And then I get into the key lime pie and now the acid kind of rips back to forward.

That's interesting.

- So dry and refreshing, clean.

- Yeah, and it's interesting because many people, they wouldn't ever try the Pedro Ximénez in Chile as a dry wine.

(sirens blaring) - We've come out here right at sunset, I mean the sun's about to crest below the hills over there.

That's right to the west, 40 kilometers from the Pacific.

This wind is building up.

Is this like an, is this a common kind of evening sea breeze that comes in here?

- Yes, this wind is very common, but in the afternoon.

In the morning, we have frost from the ocean.

And that is very good for the maturity, for the humidity here in the vineyard.

So here we can see all the property.

We have 500 hectares of vineyard.

But not only we have, we have other things.

Horses, we have cows, we have sheep, we have cherries, we have, we are farmers.

Not only viticulture, we are farmers.

(Jose and Jack speak Spanish) - The humidity from the ocean, this wind help us or help that flower for maintain year, per year.

- So it's a very unique microclimate going on here.

And the flowers prove it.

- Yes, flowers prove it.

- By the way, as you were talking, as I shifted my position, I noticed the aspect on some of these vines here and here is a northeastern aspect, yes?

- Yes, we got, because we want light... - More of the sun exposure.

- ...in both face of the line.

- Yeah, and so something important to note is that in the northern hemisphere, southern facing aspects, southern facing slopes gives you more exposure in the vineyard.

But of course, because we are in the southern hemisphere, it's the reverse.

- If you work in the hills, it's difficult to maintain that orientation.

Because logistic is difficult because the tractors or machines, it's difficult to work- - Because of the slope on that.

- Yes, yes.

- And are you doing machine in here or are you doing any kind of hand harvesting here?

- No.

Hand harvest here.

- Hand harvest here.

- Because it's dangerous for the machine.

- Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a kind of, it's kind of topography where you have to do it by hand.

- This is of course, it is beautiful.

This is my office.

- You're pretty lucky.

This is a pretty cool office.

- Yes.

- So we're here in Colchagua Valley on an absolutely gorgeous day at Los Vascos Winery with Diego and Max, two wine makers here, And they've prepared for us four of the wines to taste.

So let's go through it.

- Also we have a Sémillon.

- Like a hundred years something.

- A hundred year old vine.

Ungrafted?

- Ugrafted.

And when it's more unusual, I think it's a dry farm.

The vines, they have the roots eight meters and they don't need to irrigate them.

So what we try to do is to show the variety, show the place.

So it's the balance between both things, so barrel and concrete tanks.

Yeah, it finalizes the quality of the grapes, I think.

- Cabernet Sauvignon, this wine is very special.

- Just, I haven't taste it yet, but in the nose there's like, the fruit condition is like a double combination, it's a little under ripe and ripe.

I think like with the red fruits are like under ripe and the black fruits are just at ripe.

And then there's like this kind of chocolate, but it's like a bitter chocolate, like an 80, 85% cacao.

It's nice.

- This place is very special because it's very close to the Pacific Ocean.

So every afternoon receive the breeze from the Pacific Ocean.

Why during the night the temperature is very low, so this condition is very good for the freshness.

- Yeah, and it's a wine we produce only when we have the quality.

- Talk a little bit more about the ungrafted thing because it's not common in the world.

Like Chile's very unique for this.

- It's like an island on the continent.

- Like a island.

- Yeah.

yeah.

- And that's why apparently because of this isolation - that makes sense.

And we didn't get phylloxera in any point.

So that's why we can have ungrafted vines and they live really happily here.

We really work in have a organic vine.

It's really beautiful about wedding and wine.

It's not just a bowl of alcoholic product, it's a history, it's a cultural thing.

- Absolutely.

Well good luck with the harvest this year and cheers to that, yeah.

Yeah, cheers.

- Salud.

- Salud.

- So to continue this special visit, we have something really interesting for you.

- Okay.

- When you were born?

- 1993.

- Oh, so you can take it if you want.

- Right there?

- Yeah, yeah, sure.

You can see the color of the bottle, the old green.

- Yeah, yeah.

- It used to be a little bit different.

You can see that?

- 12 and half percent.

- Yeah, it's crazy.

The climate's warming.

- It is.

Well, perfect operation, also tool.

- All right.

- Yeah, I think that you just nailed that.

- And in this years was a hundred percent cabernet sauvignon and a hundred percent oak.

What's interesting for me, I cannot imagine a Cabernet Sauvignon with 12.5.

- Yeah, for you and me both.

- I see greenish with a lot of tannins but- - It's a different time.

- Yeah.

- Cheers.

- Well, cheers.

It lasts.

- It's on.

Because the tertiary notes are apparent, but the acid, actually my mouth is still watering.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Probably with this amount of alcohol, the acidity you have, it's really high and that's why they last that long, that's one of the reasons.

- I'll grab one of the good ones out of the 93.

- Apparently.

Cheers for that.

- Cheers for that, thank you.

- You're welcome.

- [Narrator] It is like looking into the past and realizing, wow, they made this wine before email attachments were a thing and yet it still holds up.

Smooth, elegant, and aging better than most of us.

- Diego, hey.

- How are you?

- Good, how you doing?

Good to see you again.

- Well, I have another surprise for you.

I really want you- - Just full of surprises today.

- Yeah, I really want you to try this.

So you remember we tried Cabernet Sauvignon.

- Yeah, of course.

- That was 2021 and I wanted to show you how it ages in the barrel.

So, this is the same wine but 2024.

And I really like this kind of barrel because you can see the influence of the barrel, but you can still see the fruit, the freshness of the Cabernet.

- It's so fresh in the nose, I don't even think I need to taste it, just smelling it.

It's like, it's actually like these kind of fresh flowers.

- Yeah, yeah.

Fresh flowers, red fruits.

- Yeah.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

- [Narrator] Following the wonderful experience at Los Vascos and still riding the bus from the extremely unique opportunity to taste the 1993 vintage, Jack found himself at Garce Silva getting a true taste of coastal influence in the Leyda valley.

- Alright, so we're at Garce Silva with Ignacio, the general manager here at the Mirador, it's incredible overlooked spot.

So we're just talking about the key line in the vineyard and that made me realize as well the soil is certainly something we need to touch on.

And from what I understand, it's very granitic here.

- We are in the west side of the Gusto Mountain Range and the main soil here is granite.

In the more flat places, we can found diorite is very important, the kind, the type of rock that you have in your blocks.

The exposure, you have very- - North facing slope right here too, so that's optimal exposure.

- There you have south faces, so the ripeness of the fruit is very different.

The acidity of the fruit change a little.

But if you taste the grapes, it's amazing that it's very close.

It's very similar than the taste that you have in the wines.

See that have this, this kind of particular condition; is white pepper, red fruit, dark fruit, nice acidity.

Or of course when we decide to pick the grapes, we taste the grapes.

But if you go to, in terms of laboratory, acidity is the biggest driver from quality in our wines.

In Chile we don't have problem with phylloxera.

And if you have a virgin place is in my opinion is not very smart to plant with a risk to the root.

- Of course, I agree.

- So you need to be more natural and, and use the potential of the grapes.

In this case from the Syrah.

- We should sample maybe something from here.

Cool.

- And this is Syrah.

- Yeah, so it has all the essence of this cool climate Syrah.

There has this nice spicy profile, also a little bit flowery.

- [Jack] Are you doing whole cluster with this?

- We do around 20% whole cluster fermentation.

- Okay, that's what I think I'm smelling then that, Yeah, and speaking of the cool climate, so when we got here, we noticed it was already colder than where we were in the past days further inland.

And how far are we from the coast?

- Here, we are around six to eight miles from the Pacific.

- Oh, okay, yeah.

- Yeah, I mean like, we're wearing jackets right now and I know we're in a cellar and it's a little cool in here of course, but it's cold outside so that's why we're dressed up like this.

It's wild how different the climate is because of this coastal influence.

- Yeah, and especially here around the San Antonio region, it's a influence of the Pacific and also the River Maipo that creates a cloudy and like a covered environment.

Here we have, there are plantings in a north facing slope that gets the direct influence of the sun.

Like southern hemisphere, northern slopes are the ones that get the more sun exposure.

A great potential here to develop.

- Yeah.

Now this is one, when I say this I mean it, this is like one of my favorites Syrahs I've tasted.

This is incredible.

- [Farmer] Yeah, yeah it is.

I always said that for me Syrah probably the variety that has more potential here to develop.

- Well I think I can speak for everyone when I say we're definitely looking forward to seeing how Syrah develops into the future here.

- Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, salud.

- Salud.

- [Narrator] Garce Silva Vineyards proves that even the ocean plays a part in Chilean wine.

It doesn't just sit there looking pretty.

It moves, it breathes, it cools the vines.

It is moody, sure, but in the best way.

It brings the balance we didn't know we needed.

It is just like us, Chilenos.

- Picked the right day to skip breakfast.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

- Welcome.

- Thank you.

(glasses clinking) - Here we have a diversity of thing from the ocean as here we have some macha Parmesana.

Macha is a razor clam.

We cook with some parmesano and some butter and salt and pepper.

And here we have some sea urchins.

Sea urchins for me, one of the best.

- Me too.

- And we are now in the season of sea urchins, also has crabs.

This is the, this shell is abalone shell.

The clams, clams like a ceviche of clams.

Of course, mussels.

We have a nice... - [Jack] Yeah, you have a full mix, it's incredible.

- We are here just right into the ocean.

All those beautiful kind of seafood.

- It's most complimentary to the wines right next to it.

- [Host] Complementary to the wine for us because for us, one of the most important thing is the Humboldt Current.

- You know, there's a little salinity, background salinity.

- Definitely.

There's a lot of people said the same, it's amazing.

- Yeah, it's amazing.

- It's a kind of character of our Sauvignon Blanc.

- So also it's funny because we have the Maipo River that is in the mouth of the Pacific Ocean and we have a lot of wind and influence from the ocean that run up to the river.

- Excuse me while I have another bite of the sea urchin, I'm just.

- I think that's my favorite, the sea urchin.

- Sopaipilla it's a big discover, eh?

- Wow, look at that.

- Strange.

- We like to cook sea bass because here the sea bass from Pacific Ocean here.

- ¿Para ti?

(glasses clink) Si.

- [All] Salud.

- I read recently, I can't remember what publications said it, but they said Chile perhaps is the best place in the world for viticulture and winemaking.

And as we zoom in and we see these regions, it's really quite apparent across the board.

So I think it's important what you're saying is to really understand per region, per microclimate, whether we're in the coastal range or in the valley or in the Andes or if we're in Itata or BioBio or Atacama on Elqui or Limari.

It's so different, the diversity is amazing.

- Different grapes.

It's not only one grape it's not only Carménère.

- Right.

- And for us that we've traveled the country.

You have been here for three, four weeks traveling around getting to know each place is easy to get, but the message has to be delivered all over the world.

- So where do you see it going?

Where do you see it in 10 years from now and 20 years?

- It's a good question.

I think that the industry is now on a process of shrinking a little bit.

But I think the world will realize how good the best wine from each regions are.

And I really believe that will happen in the next 10 more years.

- [Narrator] After a marvelous lunch at Garce Silva, Jack made his way back to Santiago to find a unique cafe with a fresh take on a seafood, followed by dinner at Chile's number one wine bar.

(upbeat music) - [Jack] Hola Diego.

- [Diego] Hola.

- How are you?

- Good, how you doing?

- Fine.

- Got nice spread we've got here.

- Yes, we start with the sea urchins.

This is a very fresh sea urchin with the onions.

- This is by far the best country for sea urchin.

- Yeah.

- So I gotta ask you something.

Do you like completos?

- Yeah.

- Yeah?

- Yeah.

(speaks Spanish) - But not every day but it's good, yeah.

- Do you ever pair any wine with a completo?

- No, with beer.

- With beer, yeah?

(Diego and Jack speak Spanish) (Diego and Jack speak Spanish) (glasses clink) (upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us.

- So my brother Julio, who you know, he lives in New York, he is all about selling our Chilean wine.

And we partner because I'm about protecting where our wine comes from.

My interest and my passion and my love is this landscape where the wine is produced.

I don't know if you know but this is called a Mediterranean ecosystem and it exists only in five places in the world and it produces 20% of the plants in the world.

- Did not know that.

- Yes, it's more biodiverse than the Amazonian rainforest.

Those five places is exactly where the wine is produced.

It's South Africa, the southern part of South Africa, it's the Perth, Australia, Southwest Australia, Mediterranean Basin, California and Chile.

Five places in the world.

- We got our first one here.

(upbeat music) - I'm sorry to interrupt.

So for you ma'am, we have the duck confit with a sweet potato citric puree that's on the side and watercress and mustard seeds.

And for you sir, we have our specialty, the beef tongue with a wine reduction and a mote with potatoes, and again mustard seeds, I help you enjoy.

- The beef tongue is not very common in the US.

- No.

- It's a little further out.

Is it common in Chile?

- You have to make a wish.

Is this the first time you have tongue?

- I did have it in Mongolia four months ago.

- Okay, okay, it doesn't- - It's totally random, but do I have to make a wish the first time I have it though?

- Yes.

- Oh shoot.

- Yeah, you missed it.

- I missed it.

- You don't have a retroactive wish, I'm sorry.

- No, I guess I can't do that.

What would you say?

So what's like your favorite food of all the Chilean foods?

- Of all Chilean foods?

They're gonna make fun of me at home.

Are we supposed to say porotos granados?

Have you tried it?

- No?

- Not yet.

- It's disgusting and everybody loves it.

I'm the only one who doesn't like it.

- Oh God, we've got it on camera.

- Let's say porotos granados.

- Okay.

So what is your favorite Chilean dish so far?

- Besides completo?

- Did you try it?

- I did try it.

- Did you know that Anthony Bourdain had Completo and he said it was the worst thing he ever ate?

- Okay, well that's actually a relief to hear.

- Well you didn't like it that much?

You can say that.

- I don't know if I can say that.

Am I allowed to say that?

- You do, I said that I didn't like porotos granados.

- True, true, yeah.

I didn't like it.

- Good, congratulations.

- This is like therapy now.

- Good, you can now say I did it.

- I can relax.

- Yes, we are a country that has an earthquake every 10 years.

So this is a country that starts all over from scratch every 10 years.

We are not attached to long time traditions or we are built to recreate.

And with that, we imitate.

We bring things that we like and then we were left alone, we make a completo, which is, we need help.

- That's awesome.

- The wine's a different story I think.

- Yeah, I think that was a beautiful way to put that.

- The wine is the land.

- Yeah.

- And the land is unique, that is true.

Chileans are famous for loving their land.

But I also love this place.

The wine is special, it's good because it comes from somewhere that is special and good and we need to do the same thing that I think I'm doing, which is returning the hand.

- It's incredible to be here in Chile and to be seeing it, now through your eyes as well.

So thank you.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

- [Narrator] It seems like Jack is meeting a new part of Chile with every glass here at Bocas Moradas.

But this time, he doesn't look surprised.

He's starting to recognize us the way you do with old friends.

And maybe, we are starting to recognize him too.

(upbeat music) By now, Jack tasted wine from the north, the south, the coast, and the Andes.

He's met our grapes, our wine makers, our vines, and our land.

And in every glass, he's found a little more of us.

Not just the wine, but the place, the hands, the story.

He came to explore wine and ended up seeing our soul.

Jack, (Narrator speaks Spanish) ♪ I flushed my drinks down in the club ♪ ♪ I always keep that s*** on top ♪ ♪ My piece flash like a disco ball ♪ ♪ I flushed my drinks down in the club ♪ ♪ I always keep that s*** on top ♪ ♪ My piece flash like a disco ball ♪ ♪ I dance like I don't give a f*** ♪ ♪ I don't know if it's me that you need ♪ ♪ You miss me here though I don't pick up your call ♪ ♪ It's been falling I've been stalling for weeks ♪ ♪ The stars are pretty when the sky fall ♪ ♪ Hey you won't you come by my side ♪ ♪ I know that I've been away ♪ ♪ But I don't wanna fight ♪ ♪ Hey you ♪ ♪ Can we dance tonight ♪ ♪ We're gonna be all right ♪ (music continues)