Pisco ABA is produced with the best Muscat grapes from a designated area in the unique and magical Valle de Elqui, in the high, clear Chilean Andes. Grapes are first vinified and then carefully distilled in small traditional stills to produce a clear, crystal eau-de-vie, infused with the softness and fragrance of the Muscat grapes.
Family-owned, Pisco ABA, has won praise for its products from some of the industry’s best-known critics. Dave Broom, writing in the February 2002 edition of Wine Magazine was full of praise describing it as “Great Value”: “very fragrant, all jasmine flowers, tangerine and honey… The palate is soft, silky and ass weet as syrup with the flavour of orange blossom honey.
Chilean wines have taken the world’s major markets by storm over the last decade, but the country’s national spirit, pisco, remains relatively unknown. To the initiated this remains a mystery…
THE PROCESS
Muscatel grapes, pisco grapes par excellence, with a great content of sugar and very aromatic, were grown in Europe primarily for making raisins, sweet wines, and brandy, and the Spanish began making “aguardiente” from Muscatel wine in the Viceroyalty of Perú (Perú and Chile today) as early as 1547.
First, grapes are carefully selected. After a careful grinding process that carefully eliminates residuals, the fermentation is held in stainless steel tanks and temperature control, in which yeasts convert sugar into alcohol.
The fermented and decanted wine is distilled in copper stills, with calculated slowness, to obtain the best quality and pureness of the spirit.
The first and last distillates, the “head” and the “tail” are low quality alcohols. They are discarded. Pisco is the “heart” of the distillation, that means the central fraction where almost 100% of the alcohol corresponds to ethanol. Then the alcohol is cooled and blended with de-ionized water to reduce the alcohol content.
Pisco is transferred to barrels, allowing the Pisco to soften and acquire subtle changes in its flavor, giving it a more rounded bouquet. Unlike whisky, Pisco does not benefit from aging, but it does soften.
Finally, after the most demanding quality tests in each stage of the process, the “eau de vie” is adjusted to lower degrees, from 65-70% of alcohol to 33°, 35°, 40° and 45°. Then Pisco is carefully bottled.
