Vik Chile

In the Millahue wine valley of Chile’s O’Higgins Region, among a collection of vineyards producing wines under the Viña VIK label, Vik Chile occupies a landmark building by architect Marcio Kogan on a hillside above the valley, whose undulating stainless-steel roof has become one of the most photographed pieces of contemporary architecture in South America — a building that functions simultaneously as a hotel of 22 suites, a private art gallery, and the architectural centrepiece of a private wine estate whose 4,300 acres of native forest, pasture, and vineyard constitute one of the most ambitious private conservation projects in the Chilean wine industry. The suites are individually designed by 22 different artists and designers, each occupying a specific position in the building’s curved plan with a view of a different aspect of the valley and the Andes beyond.

The wine programme at Vik is among the most direct expressions of wine country hospitality in Latin America: the Viña VIK winery’s production, guided by Norwegian proprietor Alexander Vik, is among the most ambition-driven in Chilean fine wine, with the estate’s four different soil and climate zones producing individual wines whose character the sommelier and winemaking team explain through private tastings, vineyard walks, and harvest participation during the March picking season. The restaurant draws on the Chilean agricultural landscape — the Rapel Valley’s lamb, the artisan cheese producers of the O’Higgins foothills, and the extraordinary fruit production of the central Chilean valleys — in menus appropriate to a wine estate dining programme whose primary focus is the relationship between food and the estate’s own wines. Horseback riding through the vineyards and native forest, and the contemporary art collection throughout the building, complete the estate’s cultural and recreational offer.

Vik Chile’s native forest conservation programme — protecting and restoring the sclerophyllous forest of the O’Higgins region that has been progressively reduced by agricultural and urban expansion — gives the estate’s conservation credentials a specific ecological context connected to one of Chile’s most endangered native ecosystems.