Estancia El Cuadro

The winery

Estancia El Cuadro lies in the Tapihue area of the Casablanca Valley, about 50 minutes from Santiago and 45 from Valparaíso via Camino La Vinilla. More than a traditional winery, it is a wine-tourism and events center: its main manor house, Mediterranean in style with Tuscan, Provençal and colonial touches, was designed by architect Juan Pablo Sacarella and stands on an embankment among the vineyards, with function rooms, a restaurant and a museum. Around it are a garden of almost two hectares laid out by landscape designer Christa Schulze, with a lagoon, a white bridge and a fountain, and a wooden chapel built in 2010. According to what the estancia submitted to the Great Wine Capitals network, the estate has some 200 hectares of vineyard.

The house bottles a limited production under its own brand. The top line, made with the advice of winemaker Sven Bruchfeld, comes from the Tapihue vineyard: the Syrah El Acierto, the Pinot Noir 77, a Chardonnay fermented with native yeasts and aged eight months in French barrels, of which 600 bottles were made, and Bruto, a traditional-method extra brut sparkling wine of 55% Chardonnay and 45% Pinot Noir, made for the estancia by Hernán Amenábar with 24 months on the lees. The restaurant also serves a Reserva line of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Carménère and Cabernet Sauvignon; the Carménère, at least, carries the Valle Central appellation, so not everything released under the brand comes from the estate. Harvest is done by hand toward the end of March.

The heart of the visit is the Museo del Vino (wine museum), which uses hand-carved, life-size figures to recreate how wine was made in Chile around 1900. The Tour Vinos con Historia goes through it with a guide and ends with three house wines and a cheese board; the Degustación de Vinos offers the tasting without the museum, in half an hour, and the Experiencia Vinos & Maridajes pairs five wines with bites from the kitchen, with or without a guide. Tickets are bought on the website or booked by WhatsApp, and children under 12 do not pay for the tours. The restaurant serves lunches with views over the vineyards and the Cordillera de la Costa, and two country houses with pools are rented by the night. The estancia opens Tuesday to Sunday, 9:30 to 17:00, and on dates such as Fiestas Patrias (Chile's national holidays) or Mother's Day it puts on special lunches, sometimes with an equestrian show by huasos, Chilean horsemen.