More Company Visits

Today we did two more company visits. We first visited Vina Indomita
which is a modernized winery. We were walked through the process of
how they grow the grapes in their vineyards and then process them. We
had the opportunity to see the huge fermenting warehouse where the
various wines are processed in huge containers. We also saw the lab
where each product is tested by chemical engineers and chemists to
make sure the right sulfide levels and the tastes are what they are
supposed to be. We also traveled down to the wine cellar to see the
barrels that the high quality wine is kept in. Finally, we had a wine
sampling of a white wine, and two red wines of differing ages. I
really enjoyed all of the wine, and the winery and vineyard were
beautiful. I was very surprised to see that they had chemists and
chemical engineers working to test each sample to make sure they are
chemically consistent. It was also very surprising that they export
almost all of their wine and only around five percent stays in Chile.
For lunch, we ate at a restaurant that I think was in the style of
Mapuche. I really enjoyed the classic Chilean dish called pastel de
choco. Afterwards, we visited LAN, which has been my favorite visit so
far. We had the opportunity to visit the maintenance hangar for the
airplanes and it was interesting to see all of the necessary
inspections that they do on the aircrafts. We also got to walk out
around the airplanes and saw the cockpit of one of their commercial
airplanes. I found it extremely surprising that they let us take
pictures of the cockpit because in the U.S., I am sure that would not
be allowed. Though we did not receive much specific information about
the engineering processes that are involved, we got to see a lot of
the workers in action and working on the planes. I really enjoyed the
company visits today and am hopeful that we will try more Chilean food tonight for dinner.