Fan of Spanish food? Get to know the pantry with the most extravagant snacks in the Iberian country

Who hasn’t been spilled a little bit of came and has it been stained forever? Impossible to erase, just like the taste for wine, that stain became the name of a place in Miraflores where sharing and talking around a bottle is the greatest of pleasures.

“A wine stain is difficult to remove in the same way as when a wine marks you and stains your heart. You fall in love forever”, says José Cuenco, creator of La Mancha, a wine-jamoteca in Miraflores where you can have a good time eating and tasting the best wines in the world.

In Peru, saying ‘mancha’ refers to the closest group of friends, so the name idea was immediately rounded off. Cuenco was born in Puerto Rico, but he arrived in the country 15 years ago and dedicated himself to importing and distributing wines until he managed to build this specialized space.

“It is not a liquor store, it is a store exclusively dedicated to wine, as the main cities of the world have. Obviously we have other things like gourmet products that complement the wine experience, as well as Iberian hams, acorn-fed hams, some preserves, tapas and other products”, he comments. In La Mancha, the objective is to live an experience of sensations, the tongue and palate will taste good after taking one of the 350 original wine labels from Spain, Argentina, Chile, California, Italy, Portugal, Lebanon and France or their hams. “We don’t sell anything other than wine and you have the flexibility to grab a bottle at the price that suits you, open it and take it easy. We have been polishing the concept”, affirms Cuenco.

The idea is simple: go, choose the wine of your choice, open it, drink it ‘mancha’ –or alone– and accompany it with the tastiest options for a wine such as its Iberian hams, products for which the local has the name of ‘jamoteca’:

“I didn’t want to put a wine bar on it because it’s a widely used term,” adds the owner, which is why he was encouraged to enhance his hams: “It’s a ham bar because, actually, ham is one of the three best Iberian hams in the world, the dryer is called Carrasco, from Salamanca, where they are processed in a very different style from the one we know. Carrasco’s recipes have been around for more than 130 years and it is a ham that in the end is sweet, rich, very nice and juicy. The idea was to combine wines and hams, and it occurred to me to call it ‘jamoteca’”.

La Mancha is not a restaurant, it is a space to interact with wines. As an accompaniment, in addition to the hams, they offer artichokes from Tudela, white asparagus from Navarra, baguette breads made in the traditional way with flour from Cajamarca, chickpeas from the south of Spain, an assortment of cheeses and much more, as well as a wide variety of tapas. . La Mancha specializes in both Spanish wines and a sampling of succulent morsels from the same country. The place has a terrace, a table for tastings and a jamoteca.

A sample of the wines offered by La Mancha is the variety from Bodega Bianchi, whose winemaker, Silvio Alberto, arrived in Lima a few days ago for a specialized tasting and to provide knowledge about wines. Bodega Bianchi is about to turn 95. It was born in Mendoza, Argentina, in 1928 and its creator, Valentín Bianchi was a person who permanently sought innovation. “The fact that the family has always had the concept of generating quality wines, always putting the consumer at the center of the scene and having a long-term vision meant that after so many years people continue to choose it, not just consumers. traditional; but also young people”, the winemaker Silvio Alberto, with whom we spoke upon his arrival in Lima, reflects on the importance of the winery.

Bianchi’s lines seek to reflect quality that is not confused with price: “They have nothing to do with it. The concept of quality will always be present”, be it a massive wine like Don Valentín that sells between 12 and 15 million liters a year, or number one like Enzo Bianchi. In addition, they create wines for each segment of society with the idea that each of them can take you back to their land of origin.

“In La Mancha you will be able to find the spectrum of wines of all levels, from the Don Valentín Lacrado line, which is our emblem and is a good start, and later on to wines with greater complexity such as Elsa Bianchi”, adds the oenologist. In addition, Bianchi has many more wines in La Mancha that are growing in complexity and structure.

The purpose of José Cuenco, creator of La Mancha, is to “take the tie off wine”, as a friend once told him. “The high-end range hurts people, I am not criticizing it, I understand it perfectly well, but the majority of the population is excluded because wine is not that, it is to enjoy and everyone can buy what they can and share it with whomever It has a particularity and that is that it brings you to the table and makes you talk”. For him, in times like ours, where everything is electronic, there is nothing more beautiful than having a wine and sitting down to share it with the people you appreciate: “This is the place to do it, people feel relaxed, there is no Pressure”.

More data

• Location: La Mancha wine-jamoteca: Av. Santa Cruz 1115, Miraflores
• Hours: Monday to Saturday from 11 am | Sundays: Closed.
• Web: lamancha.pe
• Orders and inquiries: wa.link/w2sirt