Struan and Anna in Chile: La Serena

So here's our account of our other day trip from La Serena during the bicentenario break: a great trip to the Elqui Valley and Pisco Elqui!

The Elqui Valley is a part of the norte chico famed for being the primary production area of the Chilean national booze - Pisco. Although Peru also attempts to lay claim to, and produces, this drink, it's a spirit that occupies a similar place in the national consciousness to something like ouzo in Greece or Scotch or Irish whiskey. Pisco is slightly more versatile though - we've mentioned it in earlier posts, it's the main ingredient of the cocktail pisco sour. More on pisco later.

Our bus journey up into the valley from La Serena was a fantastic sight. The high hills on the valley sides were baked dry and largely lifeless, but down in the valley the leaves from the pisco grape vines and the trees were beginning to create a sharp contrasting green, while the sky was incredibly clear and blue against the grey snowcapped hills.

but first, a fine washing line

We arrived in Pisco Elqui intending to hike 3km further up the valley to a recommended restaurant called Restaurant Miraflores - a common name here which essentially means "look [at] flowers", one of our neighbouring streets in Santiago has the same name.

The hike up was pretty, but really draining - midday sun and all that.

bicentenario bunting!

beautiful house - and they sell empanadas, what's not to like?

birds in flight

We saw these bicentenario floats, heading off up the valley - later we'd see them again on the way back down. Struan has seen nothing like this since the heady days of Baslow carnival.

a big cat?

oo, er

At Restaurant Miraflores, we found our old friend the parrillada and opted for ribeye steaks and a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. Much of Chile's beef comes from Argentina, and (more on wine another time) it is said that if it's chilean wine in a bottle it's good, if it's in a box it's good, and if it's in a tetra-pak it's good. It's all true.

view from our table on the terrace

Struan with chilean cabernet sauvignon, Argentinian steak, and papas fritas. Yum.

that view again

and again

Estancia Miraflores' pisco vines up close, these planted in 1998

among the vines

After lunch we walked it off back down to Pisco Elqui.

another fab house

hurrah for the jolly bunting!

Pisco Elqui's church tower

Pisco Elqui is a village with a long history of being the centre of pisco production. The village, in a fit of chilean opportunism and cunning, changed its name from "La Union" to Pisco Elqui in 1939 - apparently as a ruse to make the Peruvians believe that pisco had always been a chilean drink. We can't as yet confirm whether the ruse was successful, but there is certainly a suitably historic pisco distillery here - Pisco Mistral, one of the two largest pisco producers in Chile. This link is great, it gives you a virtual version of the tour we took around the plant.

Some views from inside the grounds of Pisco Mistral:

The link above shows you where we went on the tour of the distillery. Pisco is basically a brandy/ cognac type of drink distilled from specific grape varieties (muscat and a couple of others). Here are a few of our pics, first the museum:

some cool old distillation kit

Struan in the cellar

These are cemented into the wall...

... they used this to get the pisco into and out of the bottles. We don't know why, but it's [whisper] quite a Chilean answer to an apparently unnecessary problem (hint: next time don't cement the bottles into the wall).

the old truck

storage vats

the new cellar

our chilena guide

Our guide was a very nice chilena who only spoke Spanish. She had the amusing task of taking only us around the distillery carefully explaining everything in Spanish. Whilst our ability to understand Spanish has increased rapidly since we've been here, given the subject matter (the technicalities of maceration, fermentation, distillation...) and the ever confusing Chilean accent, at some points she could have been reciting a Spanish translation of the lyrics of "I am the Walrus" for all we knew. We were however armed with an english crib sheet, containing gems such as "it feels soft and round in your mouth." (oo-er).

Anyway, we hear you ask, why is this brand called Pisco Mistral? Because the nobel prize winning Chilean poet, Gabriela Mistral, was brought up and wrote her first works very close to here. What is Pisco like? Neat Pisco, which we had in the cellar at the end of the tour is strong stuff - we tried some Pisco Tres Erres, a white spirit. Then Pisco Mistral Nobel, an oaked Pisco similar to cognac. If you see any around, it's definitely worth a go, though we recommend you mix it unless you're a cognac drinker.