Villa de Leyva: The Vineyard, the wine and the Colombians
According to my Lonely Planet travel guide on Colombia (edition 1995/97) Colombian wine is “poor, not popular and best avoided”.
I decided to find out for myself, and found this little Vineyard at the outskirts of Villa de Leyva. The business is run by a German farmer, Don Joachim, who decided to settle down here a number of years ago. He started out with 15 different kinds of grapes, and finally decided to continue with two of them: one red, one white. The vineyard produces five different wines, ranging from sweet to dry.
So what’s my conclusion? White wines seem to be difficult in this kind of climate - the taste was not too impressive. The red wines are better, especially the sweet ones. I bought a few bottles of the red wines, so further tests will be undertaken during the time to come.
In general, Colombians are not very much into wine drinking, and the supermarkets do not offer much of a selection. If you want a good wine, imports from Chile is the most common choice. However, according to Lonely Planet there is one exception in Colombian wine production: Viñedo de Puntalarga, not very far from Villa de Leyva and Bogotá. Wines from the world highest situated wineyard - 2.500 meters - are said to be some of the best ones in Latin America. Conditions are similar to Rhine and Alsace, as are the wines. A difference is that the climate permits two harvests a year.
Maybe Colombia has a future as wine producer. But before that happens, more Colombians have to learn about the difference between liqueur and wine…
Anders