Santiago: Bocanariz

Out hotel had kindly made reservation for dinner at 8pm. This meant we had some time to kill. We were given directions to our dinner destination and just headed off. First we found our dinner destination, then we decided to explore a bit.

Apparently there's a university nearby as there seemed to be some kind of street market going on and tons of students socializing and having a nice time.

There were also all kinds of knick-knacks and "stuffs" for sale, including some "interesting" items. I used the photo on the right in an earlier post, but thought it interesting enough to post it again.

I'm wondering if the "brownie magico" helped to explain why the sausage place and the waffle shop was so busy?

It was getting close to our reservation time so we headed back. The place I chose for dinner is called Bocanariz….yes, basically, "Mouth – Nose". One of Chile's most well known exports is its wine. In spite of not being oenophiles, I thought it would be a crime not to taste a few. We were lucky enough to be rather close to Bocanariz, which has a list of over 400 Chilean wines. Our nice gentleman who provided directions told me that Wine Spectator had given the "Best Wine List" award to this lovely little wine bar.

The place was almost full when we arrived, good thing I had requested reservations a couple of weeks in advance. We were greeted with smiles and were seated in the bustling bar area.

Our Sommelier was a young lady named "Amanda" who was just amazing. We decided to go with several rounds of "tastings" and Amanda provided information regarding terroir, comparative wines, tasting notes, and some really interesting anecdotes about each wine. We were blown away, both by this young lady's knowledge, but also her efficiency, and fantastic service. She worked all the tables in the bar area and spent a good amount of time with us.

Instead of going into crazy details about everything we had; I'm just going to give you the tasting notes from the menu.

I think the "Wild Wines" were my least favorite as they really lacked depth and character.

The Missus really enjoyed the Garcia-Schwaderer Grenache, which is well regarded. I'd gotten a taste for nice blends and the Tipaume Red Blend had a nice balance.

Both the Missus and I agreed that the Kalfu Sauvignon Blanc was our favorite wine of the evening. It had just enough fruit, acid, and body to make it interesting with the usual musty fragrance in the background. when we mentioned this to Amanda she laughed and said; "yes, it's very low in the usual wet cat pee fragrance in many Sauvignon Blancs." Wet cat pee? That was a new one for me.

  Still rather full from lunch we just had bread and a decent cheese plate for dinner. Fairly non-descript, but fine. It did seem some of the portion sizes we saw were quite large and I think we made the right decision to basically go with this strategy.

It was great fun tasting the diversity in wine this way. I'm glad we did this. The 50ml pours were just right; allowing us to try a nice variety.

We finished up with a small pour of the Kalfu Sauvignon Blanc before calling it a night.

There are times when everything seems to fall in place and we receive a memorable experience. Being able to sample a wide range of wine and having someone wonderful like Amanda to guide us definitely made a difference. If we're ever back in Santiago proper, we'll be sure to return here.

Bocanariz
José Victorino Lastarria 276
Santiago, Chile

Finishing up, we headed right back to our room. We'd have to wake early, our shuttle to the airport would be picking us up at 5am.