“Congratulations! You’re a Finalist!” said the email. 

All I have to do now is convince YOU to choose me,  Gwendolyn Alley, the Wine Predator, as the one lucky writer to go on a Guided Culinary Tour of Chile!

Please choose me as the winning blogger who takes tours and participates in tastings at vineyards, olive groves, and fruit plantations. Who better than a wine blogger to wax eloquently about wine and food?

Please choose me to meet with local Chilean exporters and producers, and to eat specially prepared meals at the restaurants of local Chilean chefs. I love all kinds of seafood and shellfish, I love game, beef, fowl, pork, vegetables and fruits! My Wine Predator and Art Predator blogs and my twitter and facebook feeds are full of photos of fine food and wine that I share with my followers and friends.

Please choose me to visit the Mercado Central in Santiago, one of the world’s

top food markets, to see cultural heritage sites in Santiago, and to attend the Nam Santiago Food Festival where I will taste of the culinary innovations of Chile.

I, Gwendolyn Alley, Wine Predator, am the right blogger to write about the food AND the wine of Chile!”

So that’s the script I chose to produce for the video above instead of this one with seven reasons why Foods from Chile should choose me. And sometime in the next 24 hours I will find out whether my video submission and this blog post convinced the powers that be to send me to  Chile as the one lucky writer who will go on a Guided Culinary Tour of Chile with members of top media publications from April 7th to April 13th 2013 –flight, transportation, and accommodations all included!

Yes, as you can imagine every few minutes I am obsessively checking my email just in case they decide to pick me and let me know early!

Regardless of whether I win the contest and get to go to Chile in April or not, we had a great time shooting the video–as you can see from the video I submitted as well as the out-takes video below! Continue reading →