Life on a Chilean Viña

When I first had the idea to start this newsletter, never did I ever think that I’d be giving validation to those weird, little handgrip-strengthening devices. Nevertheless, after three weeks of pruning 2-centimeter thick vines, I can finally see the light. Kudos to the teams at Gripmaster™️ and the lot.

Roughly one month ago, I stepped off a bus from Santiago in the dusty, little Colchaguan town of Peralillo. Without many details, directions, or data, I had taken this bus to this dot on the map per the request of my new hosts. This is one of those towns where you can forget trying to blend in if you're not from there. As if I stood much of a chance at all blending in next to the guy selling chickens while I had 35L of backpack strapped to my back. Tortuga Backpacks certainly didn't miss with its branding.

Why was I there? Because a few weeks prior, I decided it would be interesting to work on a Chilean viña (vineyard). I wanted to learn about wine - the process behind making it and the process behind selling it. So, I typed "vino" into the Workaway search engine and found one. As the time grew closer to arrive, I still had zero details on what I was to be doing. I had a vision of what I expected it to be. Oh, how wrong I was.

P.S. Since writing this newsletter edition, I've published a more comprehensive story on the life of the Clos. It goes hour-by-hour and flows a bit more chronologically. Feel free to click above, or continue scrolling.

Feeding the Farm

If I were to completely romanticize la vida en la viña, I would be doing a disservice to its reality. Don't mistake me, I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of my time at the viña. The company was among some of the most interesting I've ever kept in my hosts. Every day I would wake up and walk past fog rising off the trenches of viña planted outside the house. I ate and drank in a similar fashion to how I imagine the 1700s French bourgeois did. However, that doesn't mean the day-to-day was not a complete grind. And, imagine my surprise when one of the first daily jobs I was delegated upon arriving at the viña was feeding the roughly 40 formerly-stray dogs that run around this property. 

Each morning, following our large breakfast of homemade bread, local cheese, jam from the neighbors, and apples/pears from the market, I would step outside and become immediately engulfed in the fury of feeding time. My task was simple: make sure every dog eats, refill the ~10 water containers around the viña, and scoop all the poop. For some added difficulty, each dog had a very specific personality, of which I got to know all 40 of rather quickly. You had to be keen on who tends to steal whose food, which dog would refuse to eat if you didn't continuously pet them while they chowed, and which ones only ate if you wet their food beforehand - all the while keeping an eye out for any deviants that decide to urinate in their bowls after use. This was an exceptionally favorite move by some of the older canines.

My favorite dog of the lot: La Negra. More black bear than dog and known for her exquisitely lackluster ability to catch rats.

And so, for the next hour and a half, I would wheel around the property to the various groups of dogs bearing bowls of food and a pooper-scooper. The dogs would be so excited to eat, I felt a little bit like Santa delivering presents on Christmas Eve. Except my sleigh was a lopsided wheelbarrow and, instead of gifts in my bag, I was carrying dog shit.

Something About a Sore Hand

While the dogs took a good portion of each morning, the large majority of each day was dominated by a more wine-adjacent task of pruning. As seasons are reversed here south of the Equator (something I finally understand), the spring was just arriving in late September for the Colchagua Valley. Characterized by a rather dry heat in the afternoons and near-freezing temperatures in the nights, this type of climate was exceptionally conducive to wine growing. Grapes are typically harvested here in March and April right before winter begins, so I was there at the time to prepare each plant for the incoming warmer months. 

What this meant was that each day I would go out and begin the tedious mission of pruning somewhere between 200-300 plants. The amount depended significantly on how thick the wintered vines were, how low the plants were to the ground, and also how slowly the dogs ate each morning. For the next six hours, myself and the other travelers passing through at that time would silently snip the mad tangles of branches off their respective plants under the searing Colchaguan sun. Sure, someone would crack the occasional joke about sore hands or a broken back from bending over for too long, but we worked silently for the most part. Besides, we had a great soundtrack: my proprietary rock and roll playlist remixed with screeching ad-libs from the +30 peacocks that reside at the viña.

Making French Onion Soup with an Italian in Chile

Free time was somewhat a rarity at the viña. In fact, most days I probably averaged about one hour per day of it. That's because, when I wasn't feeding dogs, cutting branches, or sleeping, I was in the kitchen. Cooking is serious business here at the viña, all directed by my vegetarian, Tuscan-Italian host. He was an absolute wizard in the kitchen. Never did I see him measure anything. Nor did I see him put more than five ingredients in a dish. Regardless of whether we had tourists eating with us that day or not, we cooked full spread meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day. On nights with tourists, we would be up until the wee hours of the morning making 5-course meals, sometimes serving the main course around 2 AM.

Since we were a relatively small crew, each person had a good amount of responsibility in cooking parts of the meal. Whether making fresh bread, cutting handmade pasta, or reducing onions for a soup, I had to learn fast or be quickly outdone by my French Workaway counterparts. While still no more than a fledgling in the kitchen, I can now proudly state that I do indeed know how to make bread from scratch, a killer pasta aglio e olio, and even a French onion soup from just a few ingredients. I'll be adding these to my cooking arsenal right next to grilled chicken, white rice, and scrambled eggs.

Closest I ever got to measuring the French onion soup recipe. Enjoy.

Canning Expectations

Expectations are an incredibly tricky concept when traveling. On one hand, expectations can be an excellent tool with which we frame what we hope to see in a place or what we hope to glean from an experience. They can build anticipation for an upcoming trip, and they can help set goals for a given experience. Google Images can provide us expectations of how the Amalfi Coast looks, or your favorite YouTube channel can help formulate an idea of what to expect from the mischief of Oktoberfest. And, at times, these expectations are actualized. But what happens when the universe decides to take your expectations and throw them in the bin?

I showed up in the Colchagua Valley with very few expectations of what I was going to be doing, but I did have a good idea of what I expected to get out of it. Full immersion in Spanish. Working alongside the owners to learn how to produce a wine from grape to bottle. Free time to read, to run, to journal. As you can probably tell from this newsletter, this was far from the case. 

In fact, I don't know if I achieved any of these expected outcomes in my time on the viña. Since almost all of the other travelers working at the farm were from France, I spent most of my time on the vineyard and in the kitchen listening with a glazed expression to conversations in French. As for the wine, the closest I ever got to learning how to produce it was snipping off some dead flowers from a branch. I didn't read a page of my book. I didn't journal more than twice. And I certainly didn't make it out to run much. 

Admittedly, I was pretty upset at this for a few days as dreams of Spanish practice and slow living were dashed as early as Day One. This wasn't what I was there for. It felt like I'd been betrayed. Betrayed by what though? I wasn't promised any of that. I had just manufactured this grand vision for what I thought the vineyard would be like.

Instead of getting to learn more Spanish, I started learning pidgin French. While still unsure of the steps that occur between cutting a vine and uncorking a bottle, I can navigate a kitchen better than ever before. I spent what I expected to be free time instead listening to stories from my hosts about their days traveling the world and getting a better idea on how to forge through this rugged continent.

So no, I'm no better at Spanish than when I started nor would I consider myself knowledgeable about wine. And I'm alright with that. It turns out life had some different lessons in store over the last month. I just had to nix my expectations to learn them.

If you enjoyed this edition, be sure to share it with someone. My goal is to have this newsletter reach those interested in traveling in an unconventional way. And if not that, be an entertaining narrative of times on the road in South America. Either works for me.

Until next time,