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Points of Interest: Pisco Valley. Be sure to read the Special Notes further down this page for important requirements and restriction. Sample the fruit of the vine on this half-day tour of the Ica vineyards. The 16th century Spanish conquerors planted Mediterranean grape varieties and soon developed pisco, a delicious brandy made from wine. Travel to the heart of the Pisco Valley and visit two "bodegas" to learn about the pisco-making process and taste different varieties. A scenic drive leads to Fundo "Al Arrabalm" an incredible place to see the ancestral technique of makeing pisco, and savor the results. Continue to the "Caravedo Distillery" with their last generation industrial plantation considered the best of South America where we will not only tour their facilities but we will also have a tasting of their "El Porton" pisco at the end. Enjoy the relaxing ride back to port at the end of this fun and delectable tour! Special Notes: Minimum age is 21 years. There is some walking over unpaved dirt and rough terrain.
As our tour bus left the port we passed hundreds of trucks. I didn't know if they were transporting sand from the desert for construction or if there was nearby mining. In my web search for an answer I ran across this interesting article that not only mentions mining in the area, but also the invention of the Pisco Sour, Peru's national drink: "How a Mining Boom Led a Mormon Florist to Invent the Pisco Sour, The unorthodox backstory of Peru's signature cocktail." See: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pisco-sour-peru-inventor
The port is quite far from the city of Pisco, more than a 30 minute drive. Since the port is a commercial port without a cruise terminal, everyone who wanted to visit the city was required to take a complimentary shuttle bus that took 30 to 40 minutes to get into the city depending on traffic. But those of us on a shore excursion were able to board our tour buses right at the ship unlike our last port where we had to transfer from the shuttle bus to our tour bus at the passenger terminal.
Most of the first 30 minutes of the drive was past desert sand dunes as seen in the above left photo. Eventually we got to an agricultural area where grape vines and other fruit trees could be seen.
Our first stop was "Cultur Pisco" where they grow all but one type of grape that is allowed to be used to make Pisco. They also grow a number of other fruits here which we were shown. We were given a tour of the vineyard and how Pisco used to be made in the olden days. It wasn't clear if this is still the way they make it here as we did not see and were not shown any modern distillery facilities.
Pisco is a sort of brandy made from grapes. I have to say they really did the tasting right. They handed everyone a small plastic cup about the size of a shot glass. Then they gave us about a half ounce taste of each of the 7 products they made from Pisco, a taste from each of the bottles that you see in the photo above. A couple of them were pure Pisco with an alcohol level (ABV) of about 42%. One of those was made from a single grape varietal and the other from a blend of 3 different grapes used to make Pisco. We purchased a bottle of the one in the above photo with the orange label that I think was the blend of 3 different grapes. Some of the other Pisco products we tasted were a coffee cream, an orange cream, and a couple of wines that tasted like port wines. The Alcohol levels (ABV) ranged from 12% to 17%. We also purchased a bottle of the coffee cream. The 2 bottles that we purchased only came to US $25.
We were each handed a cold can of what I believe was a "Pisco Sour," the national drink of Peru, to carry around and drink to keep us refreshed during the tour. Barbara and I selected different flavors and then tried each others. I liked the berry one better and my wife liked the guava juice one better, so we each hung on to the one we liked until they were finished.
The Pisco distillers insist that Pisco can only be made in Peru, just as Scotch can only be made in Scotland. They said what we had in Chile that they call Pisco is not really Pisco. They said it used to be called something else, but they changed the name to Pisco as it is popular with tourists and helped to boost sales of that drink in Chile. But the process and grapes that Chile uses to make what they call Pisco is totally different from the way it is genuinely made in Peru.
Good thing we had some cereal in the morning or we would have been doing all this drinking on empty stomaches which would not have been good.
They also sell a "Pisco Porton" that at first I thought was a bottle of Patron Tequilla as the bottle looks very similar and the spelling is very similar. They actually have to sell this under a different name in the United States since the name and spelling look so similar to Patron that they are not allowed to sell it under that name in the United States.
Everywhere we drove on our tour bus, piles of rubble in the street and on roofs could be seen. The third floor of many buildings looked devastated, with the second and first floors of some buildings also showing considerable damage. Many buildings had no glass in the windoes or the windows were boarded up. On many other buildings, the third floor roof, and sometimes even segments of walls had been knocked down. This went on for miles and miles of our drive though multiple towns. The below photos are just some of the more obvious highlights of this destruction. Nobody talked about what we were witnessing, not even the tour guide. I couldn't image what could have caused such destruction, but the tour guide did mention this area is frequently hit by minor earthquakes but did have a major one in 2007 that measured 8.0 on the moment magnitude scale which was followed by a tsunami.
Many more modern buildings were in perfect condition. Either they were built after 2007, or they were built to better building standards that survived the earthquake without obvious damage. In the United States, I'm sure the damaged buildings would have been condemned and designated too dangerous for habitation. But here, people continued to have shops or residences in the first and second floor, even if the third floor had experienced extreme damage or been totally destroyed. In many buildings I saw stairways on the second floor that led up to a third level that no longer existed.
Here is some info from Wikipedia: "The 2007 Peru earthquake, which measured 8.0 on the moment magnitude scale, hit the central coast of Peru on August 15 at 6:41 PM and lasted two minutes. The epicenter was located (93 mi) south-southeast of Lima at a depth of 24 miles. At least 595 people died and over 2,290 people were injured ... The cities of Pisco, Ica and Chincha Alta in the Ica Region, and San Vicente de Canete in the Lima Region were most affected. The city of Pisco (where we were) suffered the most damage, with its buildings about 85% destroyed and as many as 430 residents died; 148 of those deaths occurred when the cathedral collapsed in the city's main square."
We enjoyed this clean comedy show. Neither my wife nor I am prudes, but many "adult" comedy shows seem to rely on just throwing in body parts and "dirty words" to shock and get cheap laughs rather than the comedian working on trying to come up with actual funny stories. This comedian was quite funny without having to resort to any tricks to get cheap laughs.
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If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
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