Lo Abarca

Who is the Roman God of Wine?

In the poll of last month, 30% of you chose Dionysus and 70% Bacchus as the Roman God of Wine. What is the correct answer? Here it goes:

• Amphictyonis is the Greek Goddess of Wine and friendships between nations
• Silenus is the Greek God of the Dance of the Wine-press and a companion of Dionysus
• Dionysus is the Greek God of Wine
• Bacchus is the Roman God of Wine

We are happy that our God of Wine Bacchus, our dog, German Shepherd, is still with us. Bacchus had suffered from an accident in January and was in a very serious situation! After complicated surgery, he was able to recover with his own strength! Thank God, today he is still with us, happy and healthy running around in the vineyard!

Tom Hyland – San Antonio

Sommelier Journal is a magazine written by wine professionals for wine professionals, and shows the wonderful world of wine in a different way so both professionals and fans to enjoy. Distributed in Americas, Europe and Oceania, Sommelier Journal writers comment the latest news and releases concerning all the world’s wine regions.

In its April issue Tom Hyland, freelance wine writer and photographer specialized on Italian wines, creator of learnitalianwines.com, wrote a very interesting article on the San Antonio Valley. In this article he talks about Viña Casa Marin, our wines, last remarkable reviews and the special characteristics that difference our valley from the rest of the valleys. To read the article and be delighted with this wine specialist´s words and learn more about the San Antonio Valley and Lo Abarca Valley, click on this link

The House of Don Fernando (2)

A quick update

The house of Don Fernando is almost ready! Our “Maestro” has been working very hard together with his son and Cristian, one of our employees in Lo Abarca. At the moment Don Fernando is on holidays, but when he will come back he will have a beautiful new house. For the ones that didn´t read the previous post. Don Fernando lost his house during the earthquake at the 27th of February. I collected money with my friends and family in the Netherlands in order to build for him a new house. Also Casa Marín has financed a great part of the house. As you can see the pictures below, we advanced a lot! We expect the house to be ready within 3 weeks! You are all invited for the house warming party;)!

p.s. The house already survived its first rain fall!

International Congress of Entrepreneurs Viña del Mar

Wine tourism development in the San Antonio Valley

My major specialization has been in wine tourism development and I love to travel and taste wines! Who doesn´t? You can travel meanwhile discovering great wines and enjoy the local gastronomy! Last week I was invited to give a talk at the International Congress for Business Entrepreneurs in Viña del Mar about wine tourism development in the San Antonio valley. For those who have travelled to Chile or do have a basic knowledge of the wine regions, the most developed regions in the area of wine tourism in Chile are the Colchagua Valley (2 hours south of Santiago), Maipo Valley (30min from Santiago), and the Casablanca Valley (1 hour from Santiago between Santiago and Valparaiso). Also Mendoza in Argentina, at the other side of the Andes, famous for its Malbec, is a popular wine tourism destination. But who has the San Antonio Valley in their evoked set when visiting Chile? Do you???

During the congress there were four speakers about wine tourism, the Director of tourism Mendoza, the manager of tourism and events from Viña Casas del Bosque in Casablanca, the Regional Director of Viña Errazuriz and me, representing Casa Marín and the San Antonio Valley. After hearing the great success stories of wine tourism in Casablanca and Mendoza and the thousands of tourist visiting them each year and invested millions of dollars in wine tourism development, I had give my talk about wine tourism in the San Antonio Valley. I felt as the “lost sister”. The San Antonio Valley is so beautiful, and I fell in love with it as soon as I arrived, it has many attractive but those are not yet explored and financing for the government is lacking. Unfortunately a few people are aware of this.

Let me give you one example. During the congress I was reading some tourist guides with tourist routes in the fifth region of Valparaiso. One of the routes mentioned in this guide, which was by the way made by the National Tourism Board Sernatur, was about the Litoral de los Poetas route (the San Antonio Valley). It is called the route of the Poets as many famous poets such as Pablo Neruda and Victor Huidrobo have lived in this area and their poems are inspired by this area. But back to the point, within the route of Litoral de los Poetas, Lo Abarca was mentioned! Yes, I thought! Founding the right page, my excitement changed to a great disappointment. Below the heading of Lo Abarca, there were two sentences written, explaining the museum of Lo Abarca! For the people that know Lo Abarca, this museum is always closed, is very old and has a very poor collection! It did not mention anything about the vineyard, the restaurant El Sauce, famous for its Pork Ribs, the Mosaics and the vineyard. I couldn´t believe this! How come that the regional tourism board writes this about Lo Abarca! That´s also what I told them during my speech, the director of the tourism board colored red, and I hope she still feels ashamed, so that the next time we do appear in the guides made by Sernatur with the description that we deserve!!

The House of Don Fernando

The house of “Don Fernando”, taken away by the earthquake on the 27th of February

I saw the images on the news and I thought; “Oh God, I am going to do my internship in a disaster area’’. On the 27th of February, Chile and the rest of the world were woken up by a heavy earthquake, 8.8 on the scale of righter, an earthquake which has caused many damages to families and businesses in Chile. At the moment of the earthquake I was in The Netherlands, but thank god my family was alright, without too many damages in their houses. But this was not the case for thousands of other Chileans. The earthquake put Chile upside down.

I am doing my internship in Santiago with Viña Casa Marin for five months. Luckily Viña Casa Marin was not that much affected as the other Chilean vineyards. 300 liters of were washed away and also the roof tiles were broken. The family’s house at the vineyard did suffer important damages. But this is nothing compared to the vineyards that collapsed in the south and total loss of the 125 million of liters of wine in the Chilean wine industry and the many Chileans that lost their lives that night. The sad news came in on the Monday after the earthquake; one of our employees has lost his entire house.

Don Fernando’s house was built on sand and ‘mother nature’ just took it away from him, like it was nothing. He lived there with his son but now he was homeless. He is a very shy, polite and sensitive man that is working for years at Viña Casa Marin. That’s why we decided to help him and to construct a new house for him at the vineyard.

Jamie organized a Charity Action to collect money in the Netherlands, with great results. The duty now is to build a new house for Don Fernando but there were many challenges we had to face. There were no construction workers left, everybody was occupied. Pre-fabricated houses were almost out of stock, besides that the prices of the pre-fabricated houses were rising incredibly and construction materials are scarce. At the moment we are constructing his new house and we hope that it will be finished in a few weeks. We will keep you updated the next month about the construction of Don Fernando’s house!

Cuasimodo Lo Abarca

This religious festival is dating back from the colonial period, remained in the town of Lo Abarca with its traditional characteristics. The festival is held every Easter Sunday, one week earlier than the other religious festivals of Cuasimodo held elsewhere in the country. It was the Reverend Monsignor Ivan Larrain Eyzaguirre, who put his soul and strength in this place. He passed away on February 11, 1985, and is buried in the little town of Lo Abarca. Today he is remembered as the brightness spirit who initiated this beautiful colonial festival.

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It is during this ceremony where the priest of Lo Abarca stops by the houses where the people are sick and ill to bless them. He does this in a beautiful antique carriage pulled forward by horses and accompanied by more than hundred “huasos”, Chilean Cowboys, who are during this festival, named “Quasimodistas”. The Quasimodistas are dressed in beautiful traditional costumes and they are wearing special hats.

At 8 o’clock in the morning they depart from Lo Zarate, heading towards Lo Abarca, a distance of about two kilometers. Then, they head to San Sebastian, a small coastal town, to perform the same service and care for the sick. From there they take the road back to Lo Abarca. After crossing a painful hill, they reach the main square of Lo Abarca. Dust is kicked up by the caravan of those many Quasimodistas that are passing with full speed through the streets of Lo Abarca, accompanying the priest back to Lo Abarca.

In front of the Church an altar is waiting for the final ceremony, which is led by the priest and vicar of Melipilla participates, Mr. Ignacio Vio Jorquera, who speaks faithfully to the crowd that they have to follow the Christian principles and maintain the tradition and prestige of the area of Lo Abarca. The ceremony is concluded with the Quasimodistas running their final laps around the square and with burning down Judas.

I always wondered why so many horses were accompanying the priest to the houses of the sick people. It is said that this gave rise to the term “Running to the Christ”! By speeding up the caravan with the horses, the Priest was protected against the old time bandits and potential attackers who claimed to steal the gold goblets that were carried by the horses and were used for the communion of the patients that the priests was visiting.

It is this beautiful festival, which shows the tradition of Lo Abarca, the love and pride of the Chileans for their country! Cuasimodo made us forget for a moment all the problems after the earthquake of the 27th of February. It changes our fear for our own country again into national proud and joy.