Yesterday's drive through the upper Maipo Valley, passing famous wineries, had wetted the apetite (i.e. thirst) to sample some of the famous brands and so visits were arranged to Santa Rita and Concha Y Toro.

Santa Rita produces perhaps the most popular cheap wine, 120, a cheerful screw top red wine that costs roughly the same for a 5 litre bottle as we pay for a 750 cl bottle of Chilean wine back in England. We've been drinking it since Copiapoathon 2001 when we found that the best way to prepare for a night's camping on the desert floor was to down the content of a bottle or two. At the time, we understood that the name derived from the fact that Liberator Bernardo O'Higgins and 120 of his soldiers kicked out the Spanish occupiers. During our visit I learned the less spectacular but historically more accurate version:

'In 1814, General Bernardo O’Higgins, one of our country’s forefathers, together with 120 patriots fighting to achieve Chile’s Independence, found refuge in the Santa Rita Hacienda, after a fierce battle against Spanish Crown soldiers in the city of Rancagua where they had been defeated.

History tells us that the distinguished dame Paula Jaraquemada, with great courage, defended the 120 patriots by hiding them in the basement of the Santa Rita house, confronting the Spanish soldiers and not allowing them to enter her home by throwing a brazier full of hot coals at them. Thanks to her bravery, the 120 soldiers where able to regain their strength and continue on their quest for Chile’s independence.'

The historical facts are perhaps less important than the commercial lesson that a story to engage the imagination is a very good marketing ploy.

This lesson was also learned by the marketing buffs at Concha Y Toro, where the story goes that the vineyard's owner, Don Melchor, found that bottles of his best wine went missing from his cellars at an alarming rate. He moved the bottles to a special area at the back of his cellars and spread the story that the Devil would guard over the wine. The resulting brand name 'Casillero del Diablo' (The Devil's Cellar) has since made many fans around the world.

Both wineries, and others in Chile, these days also produce excellent wines, some at prices per bottle that would finance a three week Copiapoathon and regularly win prices and awards at the world's largest and most prestigious wine festivals. For me, where they excel is at bringing quality wine at affordable prices to wine shops in the UK, where a rare Chilean red wine made from the Malbec variety, available under the name Concha Y Toro Winemaker's 'Lot 500' in the UK has been my regular favourite from Oddbins for many years, until the Salisbury Branch from that chain changed hands. Guys, if I didn't buy enough of the stuff, you should have said! No one else seems to sell it in the UK. Help!!

The Cabernet Sauvignon version of Casillero del Diablo has also been an affordable favourite, and this year, I discovered a nice 2005 wine, of which the three bottles that we managed to buy proved the smoothest Cabernet Sauvignons that I drank during this year's trip. The trouble was that it too was popular, so that each time we found a shop or supermarket that sold it, we would get only the last bottle in the shop. Juan has reminded me si8nce  coming home that it is called 'Misiones de Rengo, Cuvee 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon'. Let me know where I can get a bottle in the UK, please. Cheers!

Sadly, it seems that I have managed accidentally to delete most of the pictures taken during these visits today from my lap top before taking the security back up copies. Never mind, I'll have to repeat the experience on a future trip and I still have the engraved complimentary glasses as souvenirs.