CHATEAU DEFAY

I have been wanting to go to Ch ateau DeFay for month and have talked it up so much my husband was convinced I had already been!

Chateu DeFay is a vineyard and winery on the slopes of the Volcan de Agua. To get there you first get to Antigua, go to El Calvario take the road to San Juan del Obispo and Santa María de Jesús, very scenic route you can get a wonderful view of the Antigua valley. When you get to Santa María de Jesús you go through the town into what any tourist would call a 'scary dirt road' for four miles. At this point we were debating with Tom if it would be a place we would bring any international visitor. The road to get there is so deceiving of what you are expecting of your final destination that we stopped several times to ask: we asked the man on the horse, the man walking and everybody seemed to now about the Chateu!

We finally made and boy was it worth it, we spent a wonderful 4 hours hours there celebrating Pablo's birthday. We first got the wine tour of the vineyard and wine tasting (cost Q35.00). Then we sat on the garden to enjoy a bottle of white wine and artesian truffles while we waited for other friends to come. They have 6 types of wine , everyone`s favorite was Angies Blend a white on the sweet side wine, which really had a wonderful quality. I liked a Lambrusco like wine they have: semi-sec sparkly red. We then moved to the restaurant area and had a long laughing out loud lunch with pasta and wine. The kids were having a blast running outside taking in all the fresh air. they came in for 10 minutes to eat their pasta and off they went again.

I definitely recommend this place so don´t turn around on the dirt road it is heaven ahead!