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This
festival is celebrated in Ica on the second week of March
and is a celebration of the abundance of grapes and wine in
the region of Ica (a four-hour drive south of Lima), where
persevering efforts in local vineyards have spread greenery
across vast tracts of once bone-dry desert.
The Wine Festival (Festival de la Vendimia) involves fairs,
competitions, processions of floats, musical festivals and
parties where guests dance the Afro-Peruvian festejo.
One of the major attractions of the event is the Queen of
the Wine Festival beauty pageant. Accompanied by her hand-maidens,
the beauty queen treads grapes in a vat in the time-honored
tradition to extract the juice that will eventually be fermented.
Apart from the delicious local sweets known as tejas, made
from pecans or candied fruits, filled with caramel and covered
with sugar icing, those attending the event can try pisco,
the aromatic and tasty grape brandy that originated in this
part of southern Peru four centuries ago.
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