In Pursuit of Wine in Cafayate

Cafayate is a wine region in southern Salta province. It is located at 5,500 meters above sea level which makes the wines produced there some of the highest altitude wines in the world. The valley has mild weather with low humidity, receiving less than one inch of rain per year, and is most known for the Torrontes grape. We had heard that Cafayate was similar to the Mendoza wine region in Argentina but lesser known.

From Salta city to Cafayate, there is a four-hour bus that costs 350 pesos ($9.37) per person. We took a bus on Tuesday with Roderick at 1pm and arrived at the bus station in Cafayate just after 5pm. On the bus ride, Roderick booked the Backpackers Hostel on Booking.com, but when we showed up, we were told there were no rooms available. It was clear the hostel did not have a system for dealing with day-of bookings since the person doing check in did not have a computer and kept insisting no one had told her we were coming.

With no other options, we decided to wander around town asking about hostels and found one that offered us a private dorm room for the three of us for 450 pesos ($12) per person. Since it had started to rain, we stayed there and resolved to look for another option the next day. With our accommodation settled, we went in search of wine. We found a winery in town that was still open for a tasting, Bodega El Transito. Unfortunately, the tour was not available because the wine makers were making wine, but they said we could have a tasting in Spanish. We paid 50 pesos ($1.32 per person) and tried four wines. The wines were good, but the tasting was rather disappointing as the person leading it seemed rather bored. Afterwards, we found the Bier Haus on the main square, which had good food and interesting craft beer, for dinner.

The next day, Eric and I set off for a hike to the waterfalls of Rio Colorado. See our post here about our adventure. On the way back to town after the hike, we stopped at Finca Las Nubes for a wine tasting. Finca Las Nubes is a family-run winery started twenty years ago. The view from the winery was beautiful! We paid 100 pesos ($2.64) per person for a tour of the winery in English and a tasting of three wines. In the tasting room, there were glasses filled with plants and spices (cumin, lavender, vanilla etc.) you could smell as you were tasting the wine. Here we learned that oak barrels impart vanilla and chocolate notes. Afterwards, we walked the six kilometers back to town, cooked ourselves some dinner, and then went out to meet Roderick, Leah, and Angela (from bus del Infierno Paraguay-Argentina) and their new friends, Bastien and Caroline, who had shared their rental car to drive around southern Salta province in our stead, for a beer at Bier Haus.

Eric and I have been working super hard to reign in our budget and
we were finally going pull the average below $100 on our first full day in Cafayate . We calculated we had 130 pesos to spare, so we shared a beer at the Bier Haus to avoid accidentally going over while celebrating our accomplishment with our new friends! It took a long time to work off the excesses from Southern Argentina, but we finally did it!

This morning, we met up with Roderick again to visit the Cabras de Cafayate cheese farm. Unfortunately, we had just missed the last tour of the morning, but they welcomed us to wander around the farm before coming inside for a free cheese tasting. The farm has tons of goats, some sheep, a few chickens and some cows, including a very large bull. We spent almost an hour visiting the animals and then tried the cheese which was quite delicious. We ended up buying a goat/cow cheese blend after the tasting. Afterwards, Roderick wanted to visit a winery called El Esteco which he had seen on his bike ride the day before. Unfortunately, it was closed for siesta until 2:30pm. We went to the hostel to retrieve our bags since our bus back to Salta was at 4pm and then continued on to the winery.

On the way to El Esteco, we decided to stop at Vasila Secreta winery which was right across from the bus station. It turns out it is the oldest winery in the valley. The tour and tasting there was free, which was good because it was in Spanish and Jess was the only one who understood anything. Jess stored up as much of the tour as she could and repeated what she could remember for Eric and Roderick. The winery had an interesting museum with some old grape mills and pumps and massive wine barrels made of carob. The wines were delicious and went very well with the cheese we bought at Cabras de Cafayate.

Afterwards, we walked to Bodega El Esteco which was now open and joined an English-speaking tour for 200 pesos per person ($5.26). Bodega El Esteco is a high-end winery with a hotel located on the premises. It was founded by French immigrants to the region in 1892. The tour was quite extensive and we learned a lot about their wine production. El Esteco uses a variety of fermentation vessels including concrete eggs which we had never seen before. Each method affords the wine a different flavor; fermenting in concrete means the wine doesn’t have the chocolaty notes that usually come from oak. After the tour, we went to the tasting patio where we tasted four wines. They were definitely some of the best wines we tried in Cafayate. El Esteco is one of the largest exporters of wine from the region with Don David being one of its most popular brands outside Argentina.

We had to leave the tasting as soon as it was finished to catch our bus back to Salta. Roderick walked with us to the bus station, which luckily was nearby, and we said our goodbyes there. Fifteen minutes later we were sitting in the bus, our bags loaded underneath, waiting for our departure when Roderick reappeared slightly out of breath holding wine ice cream for us. We had missed out on wine ice cream because the timing didn’t work out, and Roderick thought that was unfortunate, so he remedied it for us! In that moment, we felt so happy. We had made some great friends in Asunción, Paraguay, and they kept reappearing unexpectedly and showing us how wonderful people can be.