GRANT PHELPS VALPARAÍSO, CHILE

You need courage and a functioning GPS to find Grant Phelps. The Kiwi winemaker-cum-hotelier lives atop one of Valparaíso’s 42 hills, requiring a white-knuckle drive up spiralling switchbacks, past brightly coloured houses plonked higgledy-piggledy on steep inclines.

“Clutches and brakes are what we replace most often,” deadpans Phelps, 45, on driving in Chile’s second city.

Christchurch-born Phelps opened WineBox Valparaíso, his 21-room hotel, in 2018. Constructed from 25 decommissioned containers, it’s the first container hotel in Latin America and the first hotel in the southern hemisphere to make its own wine (the compact winery is in the basement).

Phelps had no intention of getting into the hotel industry when he left New Zealand in 2000. Making good wine in as many countries as possible was his aim. Which he did – from the US and France to Australia and Hungary. There was even a