Wine & Food

The Valle de Aconcagua is about as dry as valleys get. And yet corn grows here in abundance. That's made possible by the Río Aconcagua, whose water transforms the otherwise dusty fields around San Felipe and Los Andes into orchards and vegetable gardens. From this corn comes Pastel de Choclo, a casserole of sweet corn cream layered over ground beef, olives, raisins, and half a hard-boiled egg.

Paradoxically, this dish doesn't call for a heavy wine. The sweet corn crust and the raisins need a young, fruit-forward Cabernet Sauvignon from the valley, one that hasn't seen much oak yet. Its own fruit needs to hold its own against the sweetness rather than be overwhelmed by it. A wine with two years of bottle age is usually the better choice here than a ten-year-old Don Maximiano.

At asado, the Sunday grilling ritual over open wood fire, the rule flips. Beef off the grill brings fat and a roasted crust with it. That's exactly what a powerful wine needs to avoid fading beside it. A young, still tannic Cabernet from Panquehue suddenly turns softer next to the meat. The fat cushions the tannin, much the way salt does alongside a strong cheese.

In the foothills of the Andes around Los Andes, small farms raise goats. Their young, mild cheese calls for a bright white wine from Aconcagua Costa rather than a heavy red. Otherwise, the delicate flavor of the milk disappears entirely. For dessert, many households leave the wine in the bottle altogether: chirimoya, the region's green scaled fruit, is eaten straight from the spoon, sweet and creamy enough that no wine is needed alongside it.