Pisco valley

We woke up at our lovely place in Valle del Elqui, starting the day with Nick's classic museli breakfast and some time relaxing by the pool.
The host was lovely, giving us lots of tips on what to do, and even let us borrow a couple of bikes.
We took her advice and cycled up the valley to do some Pisco tasting, our first stop being the family run distillery of Los Nichos. For £2.50, we got a tour of the distillery and tasted two of their piscos, as well as a sweet dessert wine.
Pisco has been produced in South America since the 1500s, first introduced by the Spanish. Chilean Pisco is now a controlled denomination, meaning it can only be produced in 5 valleys (Elqui being one of them), from specific types of grape.
The Spanish didn't really know how to make good wine in the harsher South American climate. So, rather than make bad wine, people decided to distill it instead, making Pisco.
Sweet grapes are typically harvested between February and April, then macerated and fermented for two weeks. The resulting 'drop wine' is then distilled.
To distill it its firstly heated (at Los Nichos they use steam) to make the alcohol evaporate. The steam is then condensed through wriggling pipes using cool water.
The resulting liquid is separated depending on its alcohol percentage. The first fraction to come off is called the cabeza (head, containing >70% alcohol), corazon (heart, between 40-70%), and cola (the butt) - the rest.
Cabeza and cola are sold on for other purposes, while the corazon is used to make the Pisco.
To fine tune its alcohol content (as 40-70% is a pretty wide range!) they mix in demineralised water and voilà, clear pisco is ready.
At Los Nichos, they also age it for either one or three years inside wooden barrels. The one year old pisco is aged using 'inactive' wood, which allows the pisco to breathe, without altering its colour or taste. While the three year pisco is aged using french oak, which makes the pisco darker, gives it a softer taste, and adds wooden tones (along with cinammon, smoke and all the other crazy flavours they mention at tastings!).
The family run the whole 'artisanal' process on their land, using a handful of containers and a couple of distillery tanks. They only produce a few thousands bottles and sell mainly locally.
They also told us a bit about their history. Los Nichos (the alcoves), refers to the underground 'crypt' complete with little burial alcoves beneath the distillery that the family has.
In the past the local elite would frequent the distillery to get drunk on pisco, but wanted to keep their reputation intact. So they came up with the idea of saying that people were just visiting the crypt to pay respect to their relatives, a useful lie as it also deterred thieves from trying to steal the pisco!
The crypt still exists, with alcohol stashed with vintage bottles and epitaphs to the people who used to drink there, mimicking those found on tombs - though with references to the vices of those frequenting such a fine establishment!
We really enjoyed the tour, so much so that we decided to cycle 10 minutes down the road and do another one at Doña Josefa's distillery! Another family run business, doing pretty much the same thing as Los Nichos (minus the crypt!). They offered a tasting of five piscos - for free, as the owner believes everyone should try a good pisco at least once, no matter how rich or poor they may be!
We'd initially had planned to finish the day with a stargazing tour but, on top of the fact that we'd had too much Pisco, we were told it was too cloudy to see anything, so we had dinner at ours and had an early night to sleep it off!Read more