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In the Santiago suburb of Pirque sits the grand estate of Don Melchor de Concha y Toro, the politician who founded his first vineyard in 1883. One of Chile's biggest players, the company produces some 105 million litres of wine annually - a lot of it guzzled in the UK, Chile's biggest market.
If you've ever daydreamed about dropping your job to become a rich landowner in a romantic setting, this is probably the kind of old-money place you imagined. The beautiful white mansion on a rise above a small lake is the perfect vantage point for surveying a wine empire, and a tour through the cellars and vine-draped gardens confirms the impression of wealth and power.
Ambition is not lacking on the Chilean wine scene. One of the Concha y Toro staff told us "Next, we're going to take on France." We were silent, inexpert, rather than sceptical, holding on to our tasting glasses ready for the next sample. "Seriously," he assured us, "and we're working with Rothschild to make exclusive wines."
Chile may have to wait a while to beat France at grape growing, but for wine tourism (whether organised or improvised) it's a stunning country. Just outside Santiago are the lush, rolling Aconcagua, Maipo and Casablanca valleys, dotted with palm trees, olive and fruit groves, pasturelands and farms growing wheat and maize. A glance upwards, however, reminds you that everything in Chile is squashed between the Andes and a lower coastal mountain range, green, arable land often a mere sliver beside a wall of barren rock. This central region is also prime wine country, and there are vineyards tucked into every fold of the slopes to squeeze as much wine as possible out of this skinny country.
At Veramonte, in the Casablanca valley - famous for its whites and only an hour by bus from Santiago on the road to Valparaiso - there are Napa-ish tours and tastings. Local peones were picking the last cabernet sauvignon grapes when I arrived, and from vines to factory, the place was buzzing.
Rafael Tirado, the chief winemaker, told me his wines often had "a menthol-eucalyptus element, as well as fruits, berries, honey and leather." Here, I tried what might well rank as the nicest chardonnay I've ever tasted - a smoky, fruity affair - as well as a crisp, lemony sauvignon blanc. And I know those sommelier adjectives sound a little poncy - but the more you try genuinely fine wines, the more guilty you feel about throwing them down without so much as a nod of appreciation.
If Concha y Toro was almost paradise, Errázuriz was better. By New World standards, it too is ancient. There were signs reminding you that Don Maximiano was the original founder, back in 1870 - he was the first to move up to the mountains to grow wine, and his company is still leading the way, working these days with the Mondavi empire, with a view to global domination.
A lot of Chilean vines are grown at the limits of arable land, and up in the high ground, candelabra cactuses, avocado groves and granite cliffs jostle with the trim vineyards; at Errázuriz the massive bulk of Aconcagua, the world's highest mountain outside the Himalayas, is just round the corner. Pedro Izquierdo, the winemaker here explained how the walls of rock combine with the Pacific, in particular the Humboldt current, to create a unique ecosystem. In Tuscany, the sea brings warmth, but the Pacific is cooler and in Chile you can go down to the sea or up into the mountains for cold air. The best grapes often grow in the cool but frostless foothills.
The dank, dark bodegas looked ancient and classy but it is the mountain setting, the fruit and pepper trees and the clear air that make it so beautiful. Being plied with free drink - five big glasses of different reservas - and a tasting session while sat out on the gallery was bucolic bliss.
If not sated by daytime wining, you can carry on sampling the stuff in a few select Santiago joints. A new bar is CyT, Concha y Toro's smart-looking bar-cum-wineclub in the Vitacura district, where they give amateur winetasters a pie-chart of probable aromas which include pescado (fish), cartón húmedo (soggy cardboard) and perro mojado (wet dog). There are also several established vinotecas (well-stocked wine bars) dotted round the city where tasting can be done. But, if my experience at El Faisan d'Or and other cheap eateries is anything to go by, even in restaurants that would be considered greasy spoons in the UK you can trust that the half-bottle you quaff with your steak and chips will be fair.
To get away from the big city for a couple of days, we jumped on a bus to Talca, the main city near to the Maule Valley, where a dozen vineyards harvest reserve wines, mainly for export. The road round Maule is known as the ruta del vino, and there are plans afoot to develop wine tourism here - at present, though, the infrastructure is embryonic and haphazard.
At Viñedos J Bouchon, which happily receives visitors after a call to arrange times, Pablo, one of the engineers, took us from grape to corking in an hour. Some people may prefer a rustic idea of winemaking but the technology part is gripping. Grapes are so sensitive, the process is done at breakneck speed, the delicate operation combining metal and wood, tradition and innovation.
Maule is five hours from the capital and already you are in rural, smalltown Chile. Life is slower, friendlier and still folkloric. We stayed in San Javier - smaller than Talca and closer to the vineyards. People loitered and chatted in the streets, workers got caned on the local firewater, pisco, and all the village lads came into town at dusk to stand around and meet girls.
Though grapes have been grown here since the 16th century, wine is still an upmarket, self-consciously "European" affair in Chile, and hardly any of these people would ever drink their local wines - even if they had a hand in picking the grapes as seasonal labourers. So, at night we ate in one of the town's two restaurants while drinking, for a change, beer.
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