We recently visited Rio on a cruise. Arriving in March, we missed Carnaval, the massive street parade that puts Mardi Gras to shame. We visited Samba City, a collection of warehouses near the cruise ship port. It is where the floats and costumes are made, and the dancers practice their routines, for a year in advance. Our guide, Lia, was one of the dancers, but not Brazilian. She moved to Rio from…
Growing up near Niagara Falls, New York, I have always taken for granted that water sometimes creates a waterfall. It might even be massive, as the one on the Niagara river. But Karen and I heard tales of a waterfall that is over a mile across and higher than the one I know so well. It just happens to be near the confluence of the Iguazu and Parana rivers, where Brazil, Argentina…
House is a restaurant in the Casablanca Valley of Chile. It is owned by the Morande winery, a pioneer who discovered a method of growing grapes in a region viewed as just too cold to produce world class wines. Thirty years later Casablanca is noted as a significant producer of world class whites, Pinots and Syrahs. The restaurant serves gourmet meals with wine pairings that challenge the expected norms of food and…
I am writing this from the Vik Hotel in Millahue, Chile. Three years ago I visited this hotel, but just on a winery tour and lunch. I looked at the price to stay here and was persuaded then that it was like Unobtainium, a rare earth element that neither exists nor could it ever for someone without a stratospheric income. However, that visit changed my mind about the experience one would have…
Wine world (TerraVina) may seem like another television series about sentient robots, but it is actually about a hotel at the center of the Chilean red wine universe – better known as the Colchagua Valley. I’ll be the first to admit that for me the bold reds of Chile are its real strength.And Colchagua is the source of those bold reds. Near perfect soils protected by mountain ranges on two sides that…