You would think I could have taken care of this one years ago. But nary a drop of Chilean riesling has graced Australian shores in the years I’ve been looking. So it took a trip to Santiago.

We had only a day in the Chilean capital, sandwiched between two weeks in Patagonia and a week in Mexico City (see: Pulque). Riesling was at the top of the agenda.

Chilean wine is dominated by cabernet and other hearty reds, so we needed somewhere we knew the selection would be extensive to guarantee a riesling. BocaNariz (“MouthNose”), a wine bar in the Bellas Artes neighbourhood, fit the bill. We drank the Sierras de Bellavista riesling, grown in Chile’s Rapel Valley. It was nice! I unfortunately didn’t take any notes, and I can’t really recall any more detail than that.

Chilean riesling was apparently more available in New York in the ’50s than it has been in Australia of late. The Whole Sick Crew were partying with a fridgeful of the stuff:

Raoul, Slab, and Melvin’s refrigerator was already half-filled with a ruby construction of wine bottles; gallon of Vino Paisano slightly above centre, left, off-balancing two 25-cent bottles of Gallo Grenache Rosé, and one of Chilean Riesling, lower right, and so on. The icebox door was left open so people could admire, could dig. Why not? Accidental art had great vogue that year.

V., p. 348.

I spent a few days in San Francisco too, post Mexico. The Gallo Grenache Rosé, sadly, did not surface.