City tour and wine tasting

Chile's capital city is the cosmopolitan, cultural, and political center of the country. It's graced with tree-lined streets, parks, distinctive neighbourhoods, an ample variety of restaurants and hotels. In addition to its own attractions, Santiago is close to ski centers, beaches and the ideal gateway for excursions into nearby valleys and both extremes of Chile, North and South. Missionaries travelling with the conquistadores brought cuttings from their native Spain to Chile in the mid-sixteenth century, finding the area around one of the first settlements, Santiago, to be close to their own Mediterranean climate, and the valleys fertile. The missionaries planted the black pais grape to produce their sacramental wine. Farmers joined the missionaries, and the first plantings gave fruit for more than religious purposes. These commercial wines proved to be popular and were exported to other countries by the early 1800s. One of the vineyard that we can visit is located in Casa Blanca or in Maipo Valley.