The end of the year is a quiet time in the winery. The 2009 lots all finished malolactic in mid-December—later than usual, but not quite as late as last year. The wines will now age in barrel for another year before bottling, with a move up to Viña San Esteban in March to make room [...]

December is a really busy month around here. The kids start their summer vacation around the 10th, Ben’s birthday is the 14th, and of course there are Christmas preparations to arrange. I also have a lot of translating work this time of year, so I don’t get to spend a lot of time in the [...]

I started making my own yoghurt a couple of months ago,. Initially I just wanted to reduce our trash—all those little plastic yoghurt containers seemed so wasteful. But making yoghurt is so easy, and the result is so yummy, that it quickly became part of my routine. I’m now making a batch about once every week [...]

Ed reports from Rio de Janeiro:
I just spent a week on a promotional tour for Tarapacá Gran Reservas in Brazil. I visited Vitória (the capital of Espírito Santo), Rio de Janeiro, and São Paolo. I understand just enough Portuguese to get myself into trouble, but the Brazilians were very forgiving of my odd gringo Chilean “Portuñol.” [...]

Our first export to England was shipped a little over a week ago. It’s been quite an experience in terms of learning the bureaucratic process involved in exporting wine. Alcohol sales are always more complicated than other products, and when two countries are involved, the process gets even more convoluted. Our customs agent has been [...]