Pisco "Don Moisés"

On the morning after Hernán and Carla's wedding, as we were walking over to their house for lunch and to say our "goodbyes", I noticed the owner of the hotel we were staying at come out of a lot across the street. This drew my attention to the lot itself and, in it, to an old pot still or alambique in the yard.

The hotel's owner, Mr Julio Sánchez, heard me mention it to my dad and stopped to chat with us about it, mentioning that it was still used, and graciously acquiesced when I asked if we might be able to go in an take a closer look.

Mr Sánchez (in the burgundy shirt, at left) proved to be gracious and informative host. He allowed us to clamber up around his still, taking pictures, while he explained the history of the still, how he still uses it make pisco, and told us about himself and Ica.

It turned out that Mr Sánchez and my dad were nearly paisanos (countrymen) as he was originally from the town of Anco, near the border between Ayacucho and the nextdoor department of Huancavelica. Mr Sánchez is also the President of an association of Quechua-speakers in Ica dedicated to preserving and prommoting the use of the language amongst iqueños. Naturally, he and my dad had a lot to talk about.

Mr Sánchez explained to us that he acquired the property with the still on it, and that the place used to be referred to as the "Silent Industry" as it was a bodega which almost exclusively employed deaf-mutes. All the employees knew the procedures in making pisco and the timing of each step was dictated with a series of colored lightbulbs.

Among his other enterprises, Mr Sánchez continues to use the facilities to produce his own high quality artisanal pisco.

During the Vendimia, or grape harvest, in March, the grapes are loaded into a large circular masonry tub - the lagar- to be pressed. Here the grapes are pressed in the traditional way, by foot. It was explained to us that there are some lovely young ladies who are experience grape stompers who come and do the job. Netting must be put up to protect them while they are stepping on the grapes, as the sugars and aromas draw bees and wasps "by the thousands".

The extracted juice is conducted via a pipe to a rectangular lagar built at a lower level, from whence it is transfered to the fermenting vessels, of which there are thirteen built onto the hillside. Mr Sánchez indicated that this step can be done with a pump but that, most often, they find it easier to just use buckets.

After fermentation is complete, the must is then transfered to the alambique for distillation.

The resultant liquor -which can be produced in batches of up to 300 liters- is then aged for the requisite minimum of three months in plastic containers, and then bottled as needed.

Mr Sánchez's very tasty pisco, Pisco "Don Moisés", can be purchased across the street from where it is produced: at the Hotel Belle-Sand, Casuarinas B1-3, Residencial La Angostura, Ica.

Pisco

On the morning of August 1st, a few hours before my cousin Hernan's wedding -for which we had journeyed to Ica, and at which I was to stand as witness- a few of us took the opportunity to visit Bodega Vista Alegre to learn a bit about how pisco is made.

Vista Alegre, manufacturer of Sol de Ica piscos and a number of wines, is one of the largest and oldest vineyards in the country, having been founded in the 1850s, and is one of the most modern in terms of equipment.

Peru can lay claim to having the oldest vinicultural history in South America, the Spanish having brought grape vine cuttings from Europe and established the first vineyards -in Ayacucho, it so happens- in the 1550s. Saddly, Peruvians cannot lay claim to a history of great wines, but when it comes to distilling fermented grape must they've certainly learned their craft well!

Pisco has been produced in Peru since at least the early 1600s, and received a boost in the 1640s when wine exports from the Viceroyalty of Peru were banned in order to protect the interests of Spanish wineries. The ban caused wine production to whither, but pisco production continued and expanded as its sales were not legally affected and it was not as perishable as wine.

The process of pisco production starts very much like that of wine. In March, the grapes are picked and brought to a large vat, the lagar, where they will be squeezed, and the skins and juice separated from the seeds and stems which would lend bitterness to the drink. In the old days, and in some artisanal bodegas today, the grapes would be stepped on to extract the juice but in larger operations -such as Vista Alegre's- a press would be used.

Today, Vista Alegre uses a mechanical press to accomplish this task. The must is then transfered to fermentation tanks, where naturally-occurring yeasts on the grapes transform the grape sugars into alcohol, carbon dioxide, and other compounds.

The fermented must -now, I suppose, actually wine- is then transferred to large pot stills (alambiques) where the liquid is heated and its elements separated from one another through evaporation and condensation. As the fermented must is heated, the more volatile compounds evaporate out and rise through the "swan neck" (cuello de cisne) into a condensing chamber, from whence it is sent through a coil (serpentina) immersed in water, which cools it down.

The distiller's craft and knowledge truly come into play at this point as s/he must discard the initial toxic methanol-laden runoff (the "head" or cabeza), judge when the sufficient alcohol level -usually around 42%- has been reached in the main portion of the distillate (the "body" or cuerpo), while keeping it separate from the "tail" (cola) which could introduce off flavors.

The pisco is then aged in a nonreactive container, which must not affect its appearance or character in any way. At some small bodegas the old pisco amphorae are still used, but at industrial scale operations, such as Vista Alegre's, vessels of stainless steel or food-grade plastic are preferred nowadays. Vista Alegre keeps its old ceramic pisco vessels around as a decorative and historical element.

After no less than three months, the pisco is tested, bottled, labeled, and sent out to the consumer.

After the tour, which was really quite interesting, we were conducted to a room near the entrance to sample some of the wines and piscos produced there.

The wines were OK but, like many Peruvian wines, tended toward the sweet and lacked a bit of body. We did, however, enjoy one of the red ones enough to buy a bottle.

We also liked the Sol de Ica acholado (mixed) pisco and my dad and I each purchased a bottle. Along with mine, I also bought one of only 5 remaining in stock out of 50,000 numbered bottles (mine is # 012654) of a special pisco produced in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the New World .

Afterward, we headed to the weirdness that is Bodega Lazo in search of a pisco vessel to buy, only to be flatly turned down by the owner, and thence, in a rush, back to the hotel to change for the wedding.

Ica

Over the weekend we headed south along the coast to Ica for a cousin's wedding. While there we took the opportunity to visit some vineyards and the desert around the Huacachina.


Bodega Lazo

We went to Bodega Lazo looking to purchase a botija - one of the old ceramic amphorae used to age pisco.

Bodega Lazo, a small artisanal winery and pisco distillery, turned out to be a truly weird place. They still use the botijas, which alone sets them apart, but along with the botijas, the place is crammed with the oddest assortment of brick-a-brack, from pre-Columbian artifacts to old phones, broken radios, swords, stuffed animals, and even a large bust of Juan Velasco Alvarado.

The owner wanted to sell us some of the small fake botijas produced for tourists, but refused to sell us one of the antique ones, even when we pointed out a couple that were lying in the dirt clearly long unused.


Sandboarding

This morning, before heading back to Lima, we headed to the oasis of Huacachina for some fun in the desert.

From Huacachina one can hire a ride in a four-wheel drive sand vehicle for a ride across the desert and over the large sand dunes which surround the Huacachina.

Part of the ride is a stop at a large multi-tiered dune for some sandboarding:

Ica

Yesterday we journeyed four hours south to Ica, a city of over 250,000 which is the capital of the department of the same name. Ica is near the epicenter of last year's massive earthquake and signs of the damage are still evident in the city.


After my cousin Juancho finished an errand, we took off from downtown toward the Huacachina, an oasis 5 km from the city amidst the desert and sea of dunes which surround the city.

Early in the last century the Huacachina was a tourist destination, where people would spend several days bathing and boating, or just hanging out lakeside. People don't bathe in it much anymore, specially since its waterquality has been reduced due to the depletion of the aquifer from unwise farming practices such as growing water-intensive crops such as asparagus and table grapes in a rainless desert.

The oasis is still a great place to spend time, but today there is the added attraction of the desert itself, which one can view from off-road vehicle tours, which take one racing across the dunes to good sandboarding spots (the boards are provided by the tour).