The Peruvian Wine Made From Sugary Potatoes

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It's difficult to imagine anything more relaxing than enjoying a glass of wine in a beautiful location. While the idea of casually sipping on a rich red may immediately make you conjure up images of a French bistro, it's not fair to pigeonhole wine to the metropolitan realm. In fact, you can enjoy a glass of wine thousands of feet above sea level (via Fine Dining Lovers).

Wine has been around for quite some time. According to National Geographic, it was early Georgians in around 6000 B.C. who discovered that grape juice, if left to ferment underground during the winter months, would transform into the alcoholic drink we know and love today.

Though wine is most often made using grapes, Winemaker Magazine explains that a plethora of other fermentable ingredients can be used as a base for your bottle of wine. You could use honey — this is called mead. You could also ferment a wide variety of fruits, as is the case in this cranberry wine. You can even make wine out of dandelions, per Hidden Legend Winery.

However, arguably the most unexpected wine base is a peculiar potato indigenous to Peru. VinePair notes that high in the Andean mountains, a man named Manuel Choqque is transforming tubers into wine.

Manuel Choqque's Peruvian potato wine

Per Fine Dining Lovers, Manuel Choqque grew up in the mountainous Andes region in Peru and is the son of potato farmers. He stuck to the family business, and has since cultivated 90 new varieties of potato since 2014. However, it's oca, a tuber of over 900 Peruvian varieties, that Choqque uses to produce his wine (via Fine Dining Lovers). It was oca's high sugar content — which, when fostered in the right condition, can produce an 11% to 12% ABV wine — that inspired him to turn it into alcohol. According to Parade, oca is sometimes referred to as "the lost crop of the Incas."


By Nick Johnson
Source and Complete Article: thedailymeal.com
Date: December 16, 2022