ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Peru made wine before Chile and before Argentina — vines went in during the 1540s — and then history took it away: Spanish export restrictions, earthquakes, and a war with Chile that destroyed the southern vineyards. Peru turned to pisco and sweet wine. Daniel Valverde, the youngest of five kids raised by a single mother, left Peru at eighteen, worked his way from busboy to beverage director at The Palm in NewYork, and spent years promising a fellow waiter turned sommelier that they'd make Peruvian wine together one day. Now they are: Negra Criolla — the grape Americans call Mission — grown in the desert of Tacna near the Chilean border.This week: Peru's lost wine history, one grape with a dozen names, why he wants to do for Negra Criolla what Malbec did for Argentina, and why Peru's restaurants, from Central to Maido, are his way in.
New episodes Tuesday mornings.
