It’s not a pure earthquake: other drinks and pairings to enjoy the pipeño

As if it were a distant relative only remembered for its birthday, pipeño wine experiences the rise and fall of demand within days. With the approach of the Eighteen, thousands of people rush to buy cans or carafes of this drink in the distributors or the bars of alcoholic drinks; even in supermarkets, where the rest of the year is conspicuous by its absence, it appears in the middle of the aisles and under large banners.

This phenomenon of seasonal consumption has a responsible: the earthquake, this strange and sensual bomb of sugar and alcohol, born between El Hoyo and La Piojera no more than 40 years ago, and which spontaneously and mysteriously positioned as the emblematic cocktail of the Fiestas Patrias.

Without it there can be no fonda, but without pipeño there is no earthquake either. At least not genuine, if such a word can be occupied in an improvised, loose spirit drink, which works because it can be made precisely as it pleases. Some add pisco, others fernet, some add grenadine or more sugar; As long as there’s pipeño and pineapple ice cream, it seems, anything goes.

But the pipeño is not like Easter eggs or Halloween sweets, products that industrial marketing inserts once a year taking advantage of certain foreign holidays. On the contrary: this wine has ancestral origins, older than the republic itself, and its production remains mainly artisanal, regional and rural. In fact, in the countryside of the central-southern area, especially between the Perquilauquén and Biobío rivers, it is a wine consumed daily, accompanying meals, barbecues and parties.

“The pipeño is a symbol of mestizo Chile”, describes historian Pablo Lacoste, academic at the University of Santiago and specialist in agri-food heritage. “It’s an emblem of people who continue to love the land, of our stewards of the landscape, who cultivate vines not for business but for a way of life.”

As Lacoste points out in one of his surveys Until recently, pipeño was a marginal wine, typical of poor peasants, made from Creole grapes and stored in Chilean oak barrels, called pipes. For the elite, Francophiles and obsessed with foreign wine culture, it was a downright despicable wine.

“The sale of pipeño should be absolutely banned,” said winemaker Rodrigo Alvarado Moore, one of the most influential in the country during the 20th century. I was wary of the naturalness of this wine, generally made with local strains or Muscat d’Alexandrie—which did not have the reputation of French grape varieties—, almost without technological intervention, more fruity and acidic.

Mario Rivas, owner of Einstein’s pipes , famous picada recoleta, emblem of this drink in Santiago, says that “our pipeño is an artisanal wine, natural, raw, unfiltered, whose yeasts are alive and active”. All features that Alvarado Moore and high culture hated.

Fortunately, no one followed his advice and the pipeño, thanks to the earthquake but also to the eye of risky and prestigious vineyards, is now living one of his best moments. “If you go to the Itata Valley, you’ll find a whole group of young winemakers, Chilean and foreign, working with the country’s grape variety and giving this wine a spin,” says Carolina Leiva, certified taster and head of the Latin America at Wines from Chile .

“They realized that more than technology, knowledge had to be applied to it, combining innovation with ancestral knowledge in the field. Thus these wines grew, became more elegant, took on aromas and personality”. Since the pipeño is not just an earthquake, we will see some ways to enjoy it and taste it without grenadine or pineapple ice cream.

“I like pipeño because it’s an honest wine”, admits Miguel Larraguibel, renowned bartender and famous in the field as fucking bartender . “A lot of people left with the idea that it was a bad wine, but it is light, easy to drink, very cheerful. For me, it has nothing to do with the Eighteen, because it works at any time of the year”.

This little complexity it has — which is not a fault, for Larraguible, but an attribute — makes it ideal for this pre-spring, as a starter before a Sunday lunch.

As part of a barbecue, Leiva recommends it to accompany choripanes, soft prietas or chistorras. “It helps a lot with entrails or a not-so-seasoned pork loin,” he says. It will also go well with pebre sopaipillas or a pine empanada.

There are pipeños that are made with country grapes and others with Moscatel de Alejandría. The first strain, says the taster, is very gourmet and “adapts very well to different meals, because it does not take on so much importance”. This means that if we are faced with a light or fatty dish – such as vegetable lasagna, cottage cheese or even a chicken casserole – the country pipeño will be a great ally.

In Einstein’s Pipes, says Rivas, they make it with Moscatel, which is why he suggests drinking it with fish, shellfish or white meat. “Ideally around 10 or 11°, not too cold but not at room temperature either”, he specifies. His pipeño is a medium-sweet wine, so it can be used both as a decanter and as an appetizer for toast.

To these ends, “the pipeño from the Aupa vineyard — which is 80% country and 20% Carignan — is a little more refined: very good, well made and shaped, elegant and playful,” describes Barman Maldito. From the Maule Valley, to San Javier, it’s so playful they even sell it canned.

Another alternative proposed by Carolina Leiva is the Cacique Maravilla, one of the pioneers in the revaluation of the pipeño. “They gave him another identity, they got him out of Chile and they did very well,” he says. With grapes from Yumbel, in the Biobío Valley, this vineyard produces pipeños of the peasant strain -“red, good to accompany lean meats or spicy paprika sauces- and also with blends of muscat, torontel and corinto, softer and more attractive for strong seafood —such as oysters and sea urchins— or appetizers.

Even if the idea is not to get stuck in the earthquake, neither should we divert attention from what he has achieved: “in the same glass, he succeeded in uniting young and old , to converge towards the urban – the drink was born in a bar in the capital – with the rural —the pipeño is a farmer—, the new and the old”, explains Lacoste.

“When there is so much violence, so much polarization, and it becomes so easy to destroy the other through social media, which is used as a vehicle for hatred, things like the earthquake help bring the harmony, to integrate communities, to generate unity and even a little peace. They are extremely important.”

Although it’s not his favorite drink, Larraguibel doesn’t hate it either. What it does is invite you to make it without grenadine. “But yes with fernet, I love it there,” he says. But if it causes bad digestion —or this is the excuse you give to avoid it, since in reality it intoxicates you abruptly, with little delicacy and undignified consequences—the pipeño can also be the basis of other preparations.

One suggested by the owner of Einstein’s Pipes is like fruit punch. “It can be peach, melon, cherimoya, strawberry or pineapple,” he says. In other words, almost anything with soft meat and plenty of sweetness.

In another post, the same Maldito Barman suggested we make Happy Earthquake, a contradictory name for a very light and fruity drink. Just “peel, chop and seed two large custard apples, mix them with half a liter of squeezed orange juice — no nectar or sachet, please! —, glaze and pass through a juice extractor”. Then add the pipeño, serve in small glasses and savor the spring.

Now Larraguibel innovates a little more and promotes a pipeño sour, a much simpler and harmless cocktail than its pisco version, but no less attractive for that. Three parts of pipeño for one of lemon juice -it can also be grapefruit-, another of gum and ice. Beat well and ready.

Another very fruity and refreshing alternative is clery, a Chilean party classic, which is normally made with white wine but here it can be easily replaced with pipeño. Although it’s more summery — since it contains peaches and strawberries, products that aren’t yet in season — it can be made with canned fruit.

If we have a liter of pipeño, we only need to chop two cups of peaches and two more of strawberries. If they are not preserved, they must be sprinkled with sugar to taste so that they macerate and wait between 30 minutes and 45 minutes. At this time, the fruit is transferred to a glass jar and the pipeño is added. Stir, put it in the fridge for at least an hour and then you will see how it will magically disappear in the throats of your guests.

As you can see, the pipeño is more versatile than you might think. And much more powerful symbolically. Neither more nor less, says Lacoste, “it represents in a single product the mixed Gothic-Mapuche conception”. It is usually made in small vineyards, which do not have monoculture, where great interspecific diversity persists. “The vine plants cohabit with vegetables, with vegetable and fruit plants, the chickens roam them and they are fertilized with sheep manure. It is a production that is very respectful of the environment”.

The historian even takes risks and compares it to the tango. “At the beginning of the 20th century, she was despised in Buenos Aires, but when she triumphed in Paris, she became a national symbol, a kind of soft power. The pipeño is destined to follow this same path.

*Prices for products in this item are current as of September 14, 2022. Values ​​and availability may change.