Wine is an important product of Chile and when Pro Chile, Chile’s foreign department, took our party of six chefs to the Colchagua Valley and the famed Viña Viu Manent and Casa Lapostolle wineries, we were lucky.

A granddaughter of the Grand Marnier family owns the Lapostolle wineries, and we were given a tour of the vault to see her private collection and enjoy a tasting. Interestingly the head wine maker came from New Zealand and the estate manager from Australia.

The valley is a key part of the Chilean farming heartland. Its wonderful climate, cutting edge technology and creativity have helped local winemakers produce wine that holds its own against the best in the world. In recent years, wineries and local businesses have led to the growth of a tourist and cultural industry closely linked to local winemaking traditions.

While we were in the valley we took part in an open air workshop on traditional preparations featuring barley, quínoa, empanadas, corn pies, clay oven roast, handmade bread, churrascas and sopaipillas.

Back in the capital we dined at the Plaza San Francisco’s Bristol Restaurant, considered to be one of the best in town. The artful blend of modern cookery and traditional products has made its chef Axel Manríquez a celebrity. In the past decade the Bristol has won awards from the Chilean Restaurant Association and the Food Writers’ Circle.

Next we flew north to the Atacama Desert, the world’s driest. In its midst, high in the mountains, stands San Pedro de Atacama, a settlement dating back more than 10,000 years. The abundance of flora and fauna – a true treasure in these desert expanses led early settlers to the area. Typical products include quínoa, cornmeal, charqui, Chilean caric and desert herbs used to prepare a range of distinctive food and drink. At this point we were 4,000 metres above sea level and we got to eat llama kebabs – something quite rare so high up and new for me. I found them very gamey in flavour but good. In this amazing place, we stayed at the Alto Atacama Hotel where the silence, colour and textures of the surrounding mountains are the most spectacular in the world. Built in the style of an old Atacameño native settlement, it was luxury – spa, hot baths, swimming pools, outdoor and indoor dining areas – not bad for a hotel with only 28 bedrooms. During this stay, we took trips to the Quitor Valley and the Atacama salt fields, Chile’s largest salt deposit.

Moving south to the riverside city of Valdivi, recognised for the influence of German immigrants who settled there in the 19th century and their food and brewing traditions. Abundant rain in this area accounts for the local ecological zone known as the Valdivian temperate rainforest, noted for its evergreen forests dominated by native trees such as the Araucaria and Chilean incense cedar. Here German brewer Cervecería Kuntsmann has won award after award since its inception in 1997. Originally launched to provide homemade beer to family and friends, the product was so good it went to market. The brewery lies next to the best mineral water the mountains can provide, which gives the beer its distinctive flavour.

Close by, the Restaurant Agridulce has become a gourmet destination eaterie since opening five years ago. Being only 500 miles from Antarctica, the Patagonian mountain flavours it offers are fresh and clean and combine well with the sweet and sour notes of German dishes.

Pucón, 160 km north, was our next goal. It stands among the countries most recognised travel destinations. Surrounded by volcanoes, lakes, national parks and hot springs, it is a prime location for appreciating Chile’s indigenous Mapuche roots, evident in local food and traditional ingredients. One of these is the rich burgundy coloured merkén, a local spice so hot you don’t need much of it although the heat cooks off.

At the Curarrehue Cultural Centre devoted to researching and spreading native culture, chefs Anita Epulef and Anita Cea hosted a Mapuche workshop, which local women attended to talk about recipes handed down from generation to generation. What they had been taught over the years is to rear, grow and forage daily.

At the Pastelería de Elisa pastry shop we learnt about Mapuche pastry making from proprietor Elisa Cea, a chef that has even been flown to Paris to cook for the French president. She too was inspiring about ingredients such as pine nuts, exotic mushrooms such as changles, digüeñes and pinatras, and wild fruit such as maqui or Chilean guava that she used to produce real local fare.

Even learning about local sheep ranching at a typical Patagonia sheep ranch gave the real field to fork feeling.

So what did I bring back with me? Definitely a worldly experience from talking to the chefs I met in Chile and those who travelled with me. But it was also more about the way these people live and cook simply. Whether it’s in a clay oven or foraging, it was a humbling experience the way they produced amazing food – such as the flavoursome goat curry. Perhaps our cooking has become a bit too complicated.

This fact was emphasised shortly after my visit, as a massive earthquake hit Chile. I contacted one of organiser ProChile’s ambassadors, Pilar Rodriguez, to offer my commiserations and find out how the country was bearing up.

She said the force of the movement was so shocking her 200lbs oven flew in the air and the destruction of buildings was on a massive scale with no electricity or water for days.

But the big learning, she says, was that the forces of nature made her go back to basics. “Nature forced me to live as before and forced me to cook as before. The earthquake made me remember what I was told by my chef instructor from the traditional French school that was torturing us because we had to do everything by hand. The answer was always: what if the electricity goes out?

“This earthquake has confirmed that just a knife and some fire is enough to prepare a great meal, and every night we got together in my workshop to prepare a “candlelight dinner”. But Colchagua, where I live and work, will be back again sooner than we think.”