The story about how we found Pepe is a serendipitous one. First our friend Ismael Gozalo of Microbio Wines went on a backpacking trip to Machu Picchu, stopping through Lima to stock up on wine. He sent us a picture of one of Pepe's wines and told it it was the only natural wine in Peru and worth checking out. Turns out that wine was a joint venture with Matías Michelini of Argentina who connected us with his friend Pepe. We spoke to Pepe and he told us about his world famous pisco and how he had recently started to make wine from his pisco grapes in the desert of Ihuanco. Native grape varieties we had never heard of, long skin macerations, no additives, pretty much everything we wanted to hear. Now we just needed to taste the wines…

Well, it just so happened that one of our best friend’s was traveling to Lima shortly thereafter and was able to meet with Pepe and bring some wines back for us to taste. We had spoken to Pepe on several occasions and had read through all of the technical information he sent so we kinda had an idea of what to expect, but not really. We were hoping they would taste like a desert near the sea and they actually did. The viticulture and winemaking seemed primitive and the wines were effectively, primitive. They were like wines we had never tasted before but within their peculiarity, there was a rusticity that made them familiar and compelling.

Who woulda thought we’d import Peruvian wine when we started our company? Not us, that’s for sure, but boy are we excited about these wines. Come to think of it, good wine is like love, it knows no boundaries. The world could use a little Pepe wine and a lot more love these days.