Chile season

I sat on rocks below a cross on the highest point of a hill. The cross had had a previous fracture repaired most solidly, but still, non-believer though I am, when the wind blew in my direction and the cross creaked I moved post haste.

My new made friend Felix Wilbring, food and staff writer for De Telegraaf newspaper in Holland, saw some Dave Allan-style humour in it.

We had by this time gained an excellent view of the Errazuriz Don Maximiano Estate & Winery. The Pacific wind that had picked up just enough to make the cross creak had been warmer and much less strong among the vines in the valley below.

At the foot of the hills, avocados grow and help to protect the vines from any frost. In the distance is the winery and the workforce, busying themselves with harvest time.

Chilean winemakers will tell you why their country is ideal for wine production. The ocean breezes keep the air cooler. There is seldom any frost. There is very little rain, virtually none in the summer and autumn, and the Chileans get more than their fair share of sunshine.

But the volcanic soils can be provided with, if needed, a virtually constant supply of water from the melting snow in the Andes. Neither have Chile's vines been stricken by the phylloxera root aphid that threatened to destroy the vineyards of Europe in the 19th century.

Chile is shaped like a spindly finger, wedged between the Pacific ocean and the Andes mountains. It is almost ten times longer than it is wide. The wine-growing region itself is 750 miles long and benefits from something akin to a Mediterranean climate.

Chilean weather, in what is their early autumn, is much more predictable than the English climate I am used to. In my five-day stay I awoke each morning to a countryside shrouded in mist, but by mid-morning this had burnt off to be replaced by powerful sunrays. If I hadn't worn a hat and used suncream, my pale northern European skin would have frazzled. As the sun drops however (it was dark by 7pm) the air cools down quickly and a jacket or sweater is required for any nocturnal forays.

As a group of European wine writers, one morning we were expected to take part in a little work experience. I was glad to be grafting (and I don't mean propagating the vines) in the early-morning mists and not the midday sun. As we harvested grapes at an Errazuriz vineyard, some 40 minutes' drive away from the Don Maximiano Estate, real workers, close by, showed just how quickly the harvest can be gathered, jogging to and from a waiting truck with their cargo of grapes, in trays, underarm or overhead.

We returned to the winery, at the estate, to help with the de-stemming and quality control of the same syrah grapes (shiraz/syrah call it what you will). I expect it to be a very good year, a fine vintage. And I look forward to the arrival of my four complimentary bottles of Errazuriz Max Reserva Shiraz 2006; payment for my hands-on half hour. I dream of a wine being named after me, Don Mike, but this is as likely a possibility as seeing little green men, jumping out of flying saucers and hovering down the scree on the mountain side nearby, using jet-packs.

Further north in the Maipo Valley two days earlier, I had met Errazuriz president Eduardo Chadwick at Vinedo Chadwick. His father, the late Don Alfonso Chadwick Errazuriz, was a talented polo player. Two red and white striped goalposts are left at the property, where Don Alfonso's polo pitch used to be. In later life he gave his son approval to turn the field over to vines.

The title Don is seldom used these days. Don Eduardo, a distinguished man of wine with English ancestors, sits in front of an immaculate array of tasting glasses. His flagship wines are laid before me also, the last five vintages of Vinedo Chadwick in a vertical tasting. There is absolute silence, save for wine sloshing in mouths and glasses chiming together, as our group take in the aromas and flavours.

Of Bordeaux style and better according to some, these wines will lighten your purse by £50 a bottle. Don't expect them to feature in a buy two get one free offer at the local supermarket either. However, my birthday isn't until September so you have plenty of time to save up (Honey).

I plump for the 2002 but I am outnumbered by those in favour of 2003 (2002 was perhaps a difficult vintage but it worked for me). I pose a teaser for Eduardo. "Given the power, is there anything you would change about Chile for the purposes of wine production?" He pauses briefly and answers, "If I came from Mars and I could, I would like to move Chile closer to Europe because it is too far away." Perhaps Don Eduardo has also spotted those little green men on the scree slopes and is set to strike a bargain.

Saturday evening at the baggage reclaim in Madforitchester Airport, there are several text messages in my inbox and I have taken to worrying if my suitcase is still in Frankfurt, from where I had transferred. On the safe arrival of said suitcase, I am stopped passing through customs. I was hardly surprised, I felt and looked like Keith Richards on an off day. The inevitable incisive questions unfurl, until the one about my profession. "I'm a wine journalist," I state. "Is the Chilean wine good," she asks? "Very, very good," I reply, "otherwise the country itself is a lot like Spain." I hadn't intended the humorous element but I was free to go.