Colchagua Valley Wine Tours

For a Colchagua day from Santiago, book the Private VIK and Montes Wineries Day Trip from Ecotours Chile on Viator. It costs $375 per person for two people, the minimum booking, and less per person for bigger groups. It has 4.7 from 28 reviews on Viator (prices checked October 2026). The day pairs a tasting at Viña VIK with an Icon tour at Montes in Apalta, and the operator books you a table at Fuegos de Apalta for lunch, which you pay for yourself.

Before you book, know that this is a different kind of trip from Maipo or Casablanca. It is private, it costs about three times as much, and around five of its eleven hours are spent in the car.

Is Colchagua worth the drive from Santiago?

Colchagua sits in the southern half of the Rapel Valley, about 180 km from Santiago, roughly 2.5 to 3 hours by road each way. Maipo’s first vineyards are about an hour away and Casablanca is about the same. Every Colchagua tour is therefore a full day: about 11 hours on the lead tour, 11.5 hours on the Los Maquis and Neyen day, and 10 to 12 hours on the Across Experience VIK and Montes day.

What you get for the drive is a warm inland valley known for Carmenère, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Wines of Chile says Colchagua has the largest planted area of Carmenère, the grape that vanished from European vineyards in the mid-19th century and reappeared among Chilean Merlot vines about a hundred years later. Most of the tours here go to Apalta, a horseshoe of Coastal Range hills near Santa Cruz with the Tinguiririca River along its southern side, where Montes, Clos Apalta and Neyen all have their estates.

Choose Colchagua if you already know the names you want to taste, such as Montes Alpha M, Purple Angel or Clos Apalta, and you are happy to spend a day and a premium price on two estates. If you want several wineries, a shorter day or a lower price, the Maipo Valley wine tours page is the better place to start, and the Casablanca Valley page covers the cool-climate alternative.

A thin market: what is actually on sale

Colchagua has far fewer tours from Santiago than Maipo or Casablanca, and the ones that exist have small review counts. The three private days on this page have 28, 20 and 11 reviews on Viator. Compare that with 2,725 on the main Maipo four-winery day and 646 on the main Casablanca one. The ratings are high, but each rests on a few dozen trips at most, so read the listing itself closely before you pay.

Two more listings are worth knowing about. GetYourGuide sells the lead tour’s day as Colchagua: VIK and Montes Winery Luxury Experience, from $420 per person with 4.6 from 7 GetYourGuide reviews, against $375 on Viator. And the Viu Manent and Montes Winery semi-private day on Viator, from $280 per person with 4.9 from 9 reviews, visits Montes and then Viu Manent, with lunch at Fuegos de Apalta optional and at your own cost. Its listing says the winery tours are shared with other visitors, and it gives little more detail, so we have not built a page for it.

VIK and Montes: two ways to book the same pairing

Two operators sell almost the same day. Both visit VIK in the morning, stop at Montes for lunch, and finish with a Montes tour that pours three premium wines and one icon wine.

One point of geography first. VIK is often sold as a Colchagua winery, but its estate is in Millahue, near San Vicente de Tagua Tagua, in the Cachapoal Valley, the northern zone of the Rapel Valley. Montes is in Apalta, Colchagua. The day spans two neighbouring valleys. VIK’s winery building was designed by Chilean architect Smiljan Radic, with a white roof over an underground structure.

The Ecotours Chile day is our lead pick. It gives exact timings, with a 07:30 lobby pickup, the VIK tasting at 10:00 and the Montes Icon tour at 15:30. At VIK you taste Milla Cala, La Piu Belle and the flagship VIK, plus two barrel samples. A double-icon tasting at Montes can be requested from the operator at extra cost. See our breakdown of the VIK and Montes day for every detail.

The Full-Day VIK and Montes Premium Wine Tour from Across Experience starts at 08:00 and includes the VIK Experience Premium, a two-hour lunch stop and a premium Montes tour of about two hours. It has 5.0 from 11 reviews on Viator. It costs more for couples, at $419 per person for two, but unlike the Ecotours Chile days it takes a solo booking, at $610.

At Montes, which bought its Apalta land in 1995 and opened the winery there in 2004, the cellar is a gravity-flow building that the winery says is influenced by Feng Shui, and Gregorian chant plays in the barrel room.

Los Maquis, Clos Apalta and Neyen

The Private Colchagua Wine Tour with Los Maquis and Neyen, also from Ecotours Chile, stays inside Colchagua and adds more wineries. It has 5.0 from 20 reviews on Viator and runs about 11.5 hours, Tuesday to Sunday, with guiding in English, Spanish or Portuguese.

The first stop, at about 10:30, is Los Maquis in Palmilla, owned by the Hurtado family for more than four generations. You walk the vineyard beside the Chimbarongo estuary and taste four wines, including Maquis Viola and Maquis Franco. Lunch is at Fuegos de Apalta. Then there is a stop at Clos Apalta, the Lapostolle family estate, where you can buy wines by the glass. It is not a winery tour and the glasses are not in the price. The day ends at Neyen, owned by the Spanish group González Byass, where you walk among vines planted in the late 19th century and taste three wines, including Espíritu de Apalta.

It costs $370 per person for two and falls to $265 each for six to ten. Choose it if you want wines from three Colchagua producers in a day and do not mind paying extra for the Clos Apalta glasses. See our breakdown of the Los Maquis and Neyen day.

Lunch is booked for you, not paid for you

None of the three private days includes lunch. Each operator reserves a table at Fuegos de Apalta, Francis Mallmann’s restaurant on Montes’ Finca de Apalta estate, opened in March 2017 and built around a fire dome about 3 m high. You order from the menu and pay for your food and any wine from the list. The Across Experience listing calls the restaurant “Finca de Apalta”, which is the estate’s name; it is the same place. Bring a card, plus cash for tips. Our wine tours with lunch page lists the days from Santiago where lunch is in the price.

How the private prices work

All three tours price by party size, and the from-price is not what one person pays. Per person, in October 2026:

• VIK and Montes (Ecotours Chile): $375 for two, $340 for three, $320 for four, $300 for five or six, $280 for seven to ten. Minimum two.
• Los Maquis and Neyen (Ecotours Chile): $370 for two, $310 for three, $280 for four or five, $265 for six to ten. Minimum two.
• VIK and Montes (Across Experience): $610 for one, $419 for two, $399 for three, $380 for four, $360 for five, $350 for six. Maximum six.

A solo traveller on the Ecotours Chile days pays for two places, a point one reviewer raised in December 2024. Travelling alone, the Across Experience day is cheaper. From two travellers up, the Ecotours Chile days cost less per head, and the gap widens with group size. All three sell adult tickets only (19 and over on the Ecotours Chile days, 18 and over on Across Experience), so families with teenagers should look elsewhere. The best private wine tours page sets these prices against private days in Maipo and Casablanca.

Where to go next

If the long drive gives you pause, compare the Maipo Valley and Casablanca Valley pages, or use the guide to choosing a wine tour from Santiago to match a tour to your trip. If you are set on Apalta and have your party size, check availability.