Albita - an orange wine from Peru

My first ever Peruvian wine is of course an orange, from Pepe Moquillaza,

(Almost) every week, I select an orange wine (a white wine made with extended skin contact) that grabbed my attention. View the whole series here.

It's very fitting that the first ever wine I'm tasting from Peru is not just anything, but rather an orange wine made in an ultra traditional style. The winemaker is José ‘Pepe’ Moquillaza, from Lima.

Much to my surprise, there is tons of wine being made in Peru - it's just that hardly any of it makes it over to Europe. There are roughly 23,000 hectares of vineyards in Chile's South American neighbour according to the OIV, and although most of the harvest ends up in a fruit-bowl there's also around 630,000 hectolitres of wine. And a good bit of pisco, the country's traditional grape-based spirit.

Moquillaza started reviving traditional grape varieties and artisanal pisco making techniques in 2003, focusing his attention on Peru's red Quebranta grape, which he feels holds the key to the country's top potential.  He also decided to blend two whi…