Tacama Winery & Vineyard

While visiting Ica, Peru we took a trip to Tacama Winery and Vineyard. Tacama is the oldest vineyard in South America. Tacama produces both wine and pisco. Pisco, also known as The Heart of Peru is a liquor made from fermented grapes.

We took a tour of the privately owned property. Something remarkable is the further tree on the right side of the photo was used by nuns as a post to gather and likely to beat slaves that labored on the property before Peru’s abolition. To think the African diaspora was pushed all the way to Peru and I could experience it as a traveler in 2019 is surreal. Spaces like Tacama are a monument to imperialism, I proudly take up these spaces that were never intended for me to enjoy.

Tours of the vineyard are available every 30 minutes and the tour was about 60 Soles (barely $20 USD) and you can purchase bottles of pisco and wine for our 20% less than the market value. They have the tasting and tour with translators if necessary but in my opinion fully immersive is the way to go. After our tour we embarked on a wine and pisco tasting with a sommelier. Tacama has a stylish lecture room where the tasting was hosted. We learned about the history of pisco and the process for fermentation. We were trained on how to properly taste the spirits using multiple senses, and tasted three wines and one pisco.

If you’re fortunate enough to visit Peru check out Tacama Vineyard. It’s well worth the trip. It’s about an hour away from Paracas.