In Vino Veritas

I should preface this article by mentioning that the stay at the Santa Rita vineyard was accompanied by much wine, in the form of official wine tasting sessions and, well, just drinking.  Therefore my recollections of the artistic details of the stay needed a bit of a boost from Google.

In November 2019, your Web Manager and partner spent a glorious three weeks in Chile, exploring from the Atacama Desert in the far north to the most southerly region of Patagonia.  Most of our holiday was spent hiking and watching birds and other wildlife, but we had decided we would need a change of pace for the end of our visit.  Therefore, our last couple of days were spent about an hour’s drive from Santiago, on the Santa Rita vineyard.

The accommodation was in the Casa Real hotel, originally the summer residence of the vineyard’s founder.  This late 19th Century building, designed by the German architect Theodor Burchard, has been lovingly restored.  Next to the hotel is another Burchard building, a Neo-Gothic private chapel.

Casa Real is surrounded by a beautiful, 40 hectare park, designed in the classical style by the French landscape gardener, Guillaume Renner.  The park is unique in Chile and is preserved as an historic monument.  Amongst other attractions, it has a faux Roman ruin, which is a beautiful place to have a picnic, with wine from the vineyard, of course.

 

There is also a small museum on the Santa Rita estate, the Museo Andino, which contains a variety of artefacts from the pre-Columbian peoples of the area and from the later mixed cultures.  The museum includes a small gallery which houses special exhibitions and here we stumbled on a real treasure, the artwork of Julio Palazuelos (1931 – 2014), in an exhibition entitled ‘Of Men and Horses’.  Palazuelos was born in Chile and studied at the Art Academy of Giulio Di Girolamo.  He worked for a time in Europe, before returning to Chile where he became a Professor of Art at the University of Chile.  He was well known within artistic circles, but less so to the general public.  Much of his work was never exhibited during his lifetime.  Our guide told us that this exhibition was promoted by his widow, who wanted his work to be seen by a much wider audience.  The exhibits were in a variety of media, including engraving and ceramics, but all show a strong sense of flowing movement.

 

To make sure we didn’t get to much culture on this wildlife holiday, Casa Real was also home to a black-necked swan of aggressive habit, called, of course, Merlot.