To continue - -
After walking around the grounds, we then toured the production facility--or rather, the remains of it--the earthquake heavily damaged it and repairs were being made. Our guide, Diego, told us they lost 60,000 gallons of wine. He said that in the nearby town of Isla de Maipo wine was running in the streets. Some of the wineries have not re-opened. Vina Tarapaca's large steel storage tanks were toppled and some of them were completely destroyed. As you can see from the photos, they are quite large.
One fascinating thing that I learned was that the cork stoppers come from the bark of Quercus suber, cork oak trees. I believe Diego said that most cork trees are grown in Portugal, but they had several of the trees on their grounds. The bark is shaved by hand, the corks punched out. The bark re-grows on the trees. I will never look at wine corks the same way again.
The cork tree's bark feels like cork even on the outside.
Close-up of the bark!
Other photos of the house and grounds:
The large palm is the Araucaria araucana palm, the national tree of Chile.
More photos and a recap of my trip on next post . . .
After walking around the grounds, we then toured the production facility--or rather, the remains of it--the earthquake heavily damaged it and repairs were being made. Our guide, Diego, told us they lost 60,000 gallons of wine. He said that in the nearby town of Isla de Maipo wine was running in the streets. Some of the wineries have not re-opened. Vina Tarapaca's large steel storage tanks were toppled and some of them were completely destroyed. As you can see from the photos, they are quite large.
One fascinating thing that I learned was that the cork stoppers come from the bark of Quercus suber, cork oak trees. I believe Diego said that most cork trees are grown in Portugal, but they had several of the trees on their grounds. The bark is shaved by hand, the corks punched out. The bark re-grows on the trees. I will never look at wine corks the same way again.
The cork tree's bark feels like cork even on the outside.
Other photos of the house and grounds:
More photos and a recap of my trip on next post . . .
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