Peru Wants to Make Wines as Iconic as Its Top-Class Restaurants
Lima’s best eateries now serve domestic bottles, but the market is niche and profits remain elusive for winemakers in the renascent industry
The altitude at Apu Winery in the Peruvian Andes is nearly twice that of vineyards in Mendoza, Argentina.
Source: Apu WineryIt took Fernando Gonzales-Lattini four years of failed harvests to be able to make wine at 9,350 feet (2,850 meters) above sea level, atop a remote mountain overlooking maize and potato crops in the Peruvian Andes.
Fungi ravaged his vines, forcing him to buy new ones and replant. The quest to make one of the world’s highest-altitude wines also took a toll on his family. Unhappy with the quality of education in the impoverished rural region, they decided his American wife would take their two children to the US and enroll them in school there.