We decided after our dune tour yesterday that we would use the same guy, Hipolito, to take us on a wine and pisco tour. He promised us 3 wineries as opposed to the normal two and it would just be the four of us in a private car.

We were picked up at 11am and were surprised with the car. The photo in his marketing materiel showed a nice new car even though he was driving a old, ****** car. Our ride turned out to be a brand new car with AC and electric windows - pretty rare compared to the usual transport for tours.

Hipolito drove us to Tacama first, it was formerly a convent and then converted for wine making. After a short tour of the premises we were taken to the tasting room. While they were preparing the drinks for us, we were given a quick marinera show from a dancing horse (well, a horse being ridden in circles around a dancing woman - all very traditional). We were given five wines to taste, none of which were amazing and then some pisco which took everyone's breath away. The pisco was tasted neat and is very strong.

Next up was a visit to Catador, an artesanal pisco producer. We got to see the traditional process for making the pisco using the old press and the fermentation pots. Afterwards we were taken into a very touristy bar area to taste some of their pisco.

The third visit was to Tres Generaciones, a bigger operation which supplied piscos for the export market. Whilst their production process was similar, they had to abide by stricter controls to satisfy Food Safety regulations in the countries they exported to. We were invited to a tasting after the tour and whilst only four bottles were put on display for us, we ended up tasting seven. We bought some delicious local pecan nuts covered with caramel and chocolate.

After all the alcohol, we were all in need of some food so we headed for Bamboo House which had good reviews. The food was indeed very good and with full tummies, the remainder of the afternoon was spent lazing by pool before sun started going down.