Wine Day Trips from Santiago.
You can imagine that a winery where four million bottles are produced with state of the art, multi-million dollar equipment stands in stark contrast to a place where 600 bottles are produced by one man in his front garden using plastic tanks. Which wine will be better and, more importantly for us and our clients, which experience will be better?
Let’s cover some similarities. Both wineries are family-run by very passionate people, dedicated to producing the best wine they can. Both wineries are located in the Isla de Maipo wine region so they have similar terroir. Both wineries produce great wine and have garnered praise from a number of wine critics.
There the similarities pretty much end, and we do love showing contrasts!
Only a two barrel cellar 
Very limited edition wine 
Manual batonnage 
In contrast – hundreds of thousands of liters in the tank room at the Santa Ema winery
So now some of the differences? Firstly there is size; Santa Ema knocks out around 4 million bottles of our favorite liquid per year, across a range of styles, lines, and varieties and includes a traditional method sparkling in its portfolio. Hoops winery, named after English owner Guy Hooper, produces just two barriques from half a hectare which is, in fact, his front garden. A field blend of what he is able to grow and the birds don’t eat!
Production methods and technology vary widely too, the budget of Hoops is what Guy can afford to spare from his regular paycheck, Santa Ema have a large operating budget today, having built up the winery over several decades of hard work and good marketing. You can see from the photos that Santa Ema is a modern facility with dozens of huge stainless, computer-controlled tanks, whereas Hoops has 4 plastic bins which will be managed manually.
Boutique winery Hoops produces a field blend in plastic tanks
Hoops is truly a family affair, so at pruning, harvesting, treading (yes, they foot tread), batonnage (note the plunger in the photo), and bottling everything is done manually by friends and family. Santa Ema, you can imagine, stopped having direct, hands-on family involvement like that many years ago, plus technology is used extensively.
What about visiting the wineries?
Santa Ema has a custom-built wine store and tasting area for visitors, with some aroma jars to test your senses. The tour is an interesting one as you trace the family history and view the impressive facility from an elevated viewpoint. Of course, a tasting will be enjoyed later. It is good to see how a well funded, technologically advanced winery works. You can then relax and sip in lovely surroundings with views over the vines and the unusually shaped winery building.
Hoops is understandably a very much more personal experience with Guy proudly showing you his vines, explaining in detail all the steps taken to produce the wine, and then taking you to see his production area and barrel cellar. You can’t fail to be impressed with his passion and enthusiasm and sitting with Guy and his wife Maria Jose in their garden sipping a glass of their wine is a real treat.
So which is better wine-wise or visit-wise? We think you need to do both (plus one more winery with lunch) on a wine day trip from Santiago to fully enjoy the contrasts.
You can see in the photos that we also visited De Martino winery on this particular trip, this is where Guy has his day job as an export manager. This is a great visit too, and you can see that De Martino are producing small batches of wine in Qvevri style clay amphorae, or Tinajas as they are known in Spanish, make sure you try that while you are down here.
