A Maipo Valley wine day from Santiago starts at Undurraga

What the two tours show you

Tour Founders costs $42.000 CLP and leaves once a day, Monday to Saturday at 12:00. Sibaris is the one most visitors take.

Spanish departures go at 10:00 and 11:30, then again at 15:00 and 16:30. English runs twice a day, at 10:00 and 15:00. Pick the language when you book, because the departures are separate.

The walk crosses a 19th-century park laid out by the French landscaper George Henri Dubois. The conifers and palms he planted have grown giant and the path runs under them. Tall carved Mapuche wooden figures stand at the Aliwen corner. The picnic is eaten out here, among the old trees.

Underground, the 1872 cellar stays dim. The bottles racked along it are the family's own collection, dusty where they lie.

The shop opens 10:00 to 17:30, and the picnic is the only food sold on the estate. No one under 14 is admitted to a tour, so younger children cannot come with you.

Booking before you drive out

Undurraga sells its scheduled departures through its own TourPay system. Reserve the slot before you leave Santiago; the times are fixed, and the one you want may not be the one running when you arrive. Full-day tours into the valley go seven days a week, and they are booking steadily at the moment.

Lunch at Santa Ema or Zinfandel

Viña Santa Ema (Isla de Maipo) keeps its kitchen on the estate. Vines shade the Casa Ema terrace, and flat vine rows start at the edge of a low whitewashed bodega built by an Italian immigrant family. Tours begin at $25.000 CLP and run in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The doors are open Monday to Saturday, 9:00 to 18:00. The Food Experience pairs a lunch with the wines, takes three hours at a higher price, and fills the afternoon half of a full day.

Restaurant Zinfandel (Avenida Balmaceda, Isla de Maipo) puts its tables under mature shade trees in a garden inside the TerraMater estate, with vine rows a few metres away. Mains run $14.000 to $28.000 CLP. It opens at 10:00 every day. Sunday and Monday it stops at 19:00. Tuesday and Wednesday it runs to 21:00, Thursday to Saturday to 23:00. Book ahead at weekends. After a late Undurraga departure, this is the only kitchen nearby still serving.

A second cellar in Isla de Maipo

Viña De Martino (Manuel Rodríguez, Isla de Maipo) is a working winery in the middle of town, 15 minutes from Undurraga. The halls hold fat 5,000-litre oak foudres, and one historic room has waist-high terracotta amphoras sunk in rows. If you want to talk winemaking, the amphora and foudre fermentation makes this the stop. Tours and tastings cost $14.000 to $35.000 CLP, with lunch from $46.000 CLP. Guides work in two languages and visits happen by prior reservation only. Weekdays it opens 8:30 to 13:00 and again 14:30 to 18:00. Saturday morning runs 10:30 to 13:00. It closes on Sunday.

Viña Tarapacá (Isla de Maipo) stands in a single enclosed valley ringed by dry brown hills with the Andes behind it: a 1927 Tuscan-style ochre mansion called La Casona, cypresses and a formal lawn. The setting is the reason to come if Undurraga's standard tour leaves you wanting something grander. Visits start at $78.900 CLP per person and the high-end tastings reach $167.900 CLP. Reserve in advance by email to [email protected], because the gate turns away anyone without that.

Odfjell and Pérez Cruz for the buildings

Viña Odfjell (Padre Hurtado) sits on the same road out of town as Undurraga, the closest of the alternatives. The bodega is stark concrete and timber, Norwegian-designed, stepping down a steep vine-covered hillside, with horses grazing on the slope and a long view across the valley to the Andes. The Orzada tasting costs $12.000 CLP. A premium tour reaches $65.000 CLP, and a picnic for two is $40.000 CLP. Tours go Tuesday to Saturday, leaving at 10:00, 12:00 and 15:00. Every booking has to be confirmed in writing first.

Viña Pérez Cruz stands with the Andes foothills right behind its Cabernet rows, in José Cruz Ovalle's curved laminated-wood winery, ribbed like an upturned boat hull and set among dry-stone walls and native scrub. People travel for the building alone. Tastings cost $42.000 to $110.000 CLP. A booking needs a minimum of two people and 24 hours' notice, so a solo traveller cannot get in. Weekdays it opens 10:00 to 15:00. Weekends and holidays it opens 10:15 to 12:30.

Santa Rita and the free museum in its park

Viña Santa Rita has the Casa Real mansion with deep verandas, a neo-Gothic chapel and a 40-hectare park of century-old trees. Its brick-vaulted 1880s cellar is a national monument, and 120 independence fighters once sheltered in it. Tours cost $30.000 to $60.000 CLP, daily from 9:30 to 18:00. Each guided group is capped at 10 people, and a bigger party is split across guides. The Doña Paula restaurant is on the estate, so the museum, the park and a kitchen all sit inside one gate.

Museo Andino (inside the Santa Rita grounds) holds cool stone-and-glass galleries where Mapuche silver and Andean textiles are lit against dark walls. Pre-Columbian ceramics fill the cases beside them. Entry costs nothing, Tuesday to Sunday from 10:30 to 17:00, and you walk in without a reservation. Most wine-day visitors drive past it.

Concha y Toro when you want the bigger production

Viña Concha y Toro runs timed multilingual slots booked on its own reservation site, and coach parties are routine. The standard tour starts at $35.000 CLP and the premium one, with the sensory museum, at $55.000 CLP. You see a Victorian summer residence with formal flower gardens and a lily pond, then the Casillero del Diablo cellar, a long dark barrel tunnel staged around the devil legend. Skip it if the quiet of Undurraga's park is the reason you came out here.

Cousiño Macul when the day is short

Viña Cousiño Macul is the Maipo winery inside the city, reached by Metro to Quilín and a short bus, half an hour door to door. It is the fallback when a full day out to Talagante will not fit. The approach runs down an avenue of mature trees, with Santiago's eastern suburbs behind and the Andes wall standing over the vines. The cellar is 1870s brick-arched and underground, next to a small museum of old bottles and tools. The Traditional tour lasts an hour and costs $26.500 CLP. Bike tours run $37.500 to $55.000 CLP. It opens Tuesday to Sunday.

Clay at Pomaire, the coast and a hill

Granja Alfarera (O'Higgins 260a, Pomaire) sits on the same Camino a Melipilla as Undurraga. The workshop is open-sided, red clay spinning on low foot-driven wheels and a wood-fired kiln out the back. Shelves of three-legged chanchito piggy banks dry along the walls. An hour at the wheel gives the non-drinkers in the car something of their own. Sessions run Tuesday to Friday at 10:00 and 12:00, with 14:00 and 16:00 added at weekends. Fees are low ($$), and a reservation is required; confirm the figure when you book.

Casa Museo Isla Negra is 90 minutes further west, a ship-shaped stone-and-timber house on a cliff above a black-rock beach. Ships' figureheads hang under a low wooden ceiling and bottled sailing ships stand in the rooms. Neruda's grave is out on the terrace. Entry costs $11.000 CLP, or $4.500 CLP reduced, and on Tuesdays everyone pays the reduced rate. Audio guides come in six languages. It opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00, and individuals are admitted first come. Leave Undurraga by early afternoon or this will not fit.

Cerro Amarillo (Isla de Maipo) is a lone hill rising out of a dead-flat plain of vines and orchards, with dirt switchbacks through thorn scrub to a bare summit looking over the valley to the Andes. The hill is open access and free, with no facilities on it. The walk is 11 km and takes four hours. The climb is 500 m. Give it a morning of its own.

Is it worth it

Undurraga suits a visitor who wants a park and an old cellar as much as the glass in their hand. It asks for a booked slot, a drive out of the city and a meal arranged somewhere else.

Best time to go

Go on a weekday. Sunday takes De Martino, Odfjell and the Founders tour out of the plan.

A morning departure from Undurraga leaves the afternoon open for lunch and one more cellar. The later slots suit a visitor making Undurraga the single stop, with an evening table in Isla de Maipo afterwards.

Cerro Amarillo has no shade anywhere on the climb, so walk it at first light and on a different day from the wine.

Tuesday is the cheap day at Isla Negra, and it is the first day of the week the Museo Andino opens.

Before you drive out

Book Undurraga, De Martino, Tarapacá, Pérez Cruz and the Pomaire workshop ahead; two of them admit nobody who turns up unreserved. Sunday thins the valley out, and no one under 14 joins an Undurraga tour.

See the Santiago guide and the Santiago hotel search.