The Wines of Cafayate

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Ola,

We left Salta on a morning bus that would take us four hours to get to Cafayette. The scenery en route was absolutely stunning!!! The entire way was a mixture of red and black canyons, interspersend with green valleys, winding rivers and towering mountains. Unfortunatly, it wook us an hour longer than it was supposed to but that was because the clutch on our bus died twice.

We arrived in Cafayette and checked into Hostal Rusty K. It has tiled terracotta floors and a beautiful cortyard with trees and flowers everywhere. We wandered around the extremelyu pretty town afterwards. We managed to find an ice cream store that served two types of ice cream that were made out of cabernet sauvingon and torrontes. They were excellent, and there was a liberal amount of alcohol present in then. Afterwards, we had lunch as La Casa de Empañadas, where they served 12 different types of empañadas. The ones with blue cheese, onions and garlic were our favourite.

Cafayette is famous for its wineries. There are 11 in town, and we have made it our goal to visit them all. The first one we visited was called Domingo Hermanos. We got a tour of their faciliies and they served us a torrontes and two cabernet sauvignons. They were good, but nothing special. The next one we visited was called Bodega Nanni and it has been producing wine for over 100 years. We toured the site, it had an extremely beautiful courtyard and was certified organic. We tasted a torrontes, rosato, cabernet sauvignon and a torrontes tardie which is a desert wine. The torrontes was exceptional. Next was El Transito which had only been functioning as a winery for 6 years. We had a torrontes, malbec and a cabernet sauvignon. The reds were exquisite! Following that was Salvador Figueroa. The winery was very small, only producing 1200 bottles a year. We tried a torrontes and a malbec, and the malbec was quite tasty. After visiting four wineries, we purchased a Elemento Tannat from El Esteco, and went back to the hostel to watch Real Madrid defeat AC Milan in the Champions League. Neither of us had ever had Tannat before, but it was one of the best wines we had ever tasted!!!

The next morning, we rented a couple of bikes because we wanted to visit wineries that were a little outside of Cafayette. The first one we went to was called San Pedro de Yachochuya. It was located 7km outside of Cafayette. Uphill. In 28 degree sun. It took us an hour to get there and despite the beautiful location, we were not impressed as the place did not offer tastings. Dissapointed, we biked back down the hill to Bodega Utama, which was a small family run winery. it was very interesting to see how the smaller ones are run when compared to the larger ones. We were able to taste a blend of criolla, malbec and cabernet sauvignon, and we ended up buying a bottle. The father of the man who runs the winery actually designs the artwork that appears on the lables. Since we had some time left before the wineries closed for siesta, we headed over to Vasija Secreto which is one of the larger wineris in the region. We were extremely dissapointed as the tour of the facilities was rushed and the wines that were available for tasting were far too young and quite bland. We headed back to the hostel for siesta, and more empañadas, before heading to El Esteco. El Esteco is the largest winery in the region, producing over 4 million litres of wine a year. The tour of the winery was long and extremely informative, and the two wines that were included after the tour, an Elemento torrontes and an Elemento malbec were exceptional. The winery produces over 30 different types of wine, including differing grapes, production processes and aging processes. We were able to try two more wines; a Don David Syrrah and a Ciclos Malbec. Both were exceptionaly refined and delicious.

After our winery visit, we went to a farm. Now it may sound like a bit of a step backwards, but it was very enjoyable. It was a goat farm that produced goat milk and goat cheese. We got to see many little goats running around and we got to sample some excellent cheese before biking back to the hostel and enjoying some of the wine we had purchased with some of the cheese we had purchased in the grape vine accented courtyard that is at the hostel.

The next day, we thought we would change things up a little bit. Wait for it... we decided to go and visit a winery. We walked to Bodegas Etchart, which produced 4.5 million litres of wine a year. Unfortunatly, it is not in a large at a la Scrooge McDuck's moneybin so we were not able to swim in it. It was a very intereting tour, and we got to see some of the first wine bottles the vineyard produced for commercial use as well as some of the oak casks that were originally used when the vineyard opened in 1850. We walked to another vineyard afterward, but it was closed. We had empañadas for lunch, and we decided that the Don Caro was our favourite. It had four different types of cheese, onions, spices and some rich cream. It was amazing!!! After lunch and siesta, we hiked uphill to the last winery in town that we coule visit which was called Finca de las Nubes. It was out of town, surrounded by cacti and beautiful rocky landscapes with sweeping views of the city. We enjoyed a couple of wines there before heading back into town to enjoy or last dinner in Cafayate. The city has been one of our favourite places on the trip so far.

Bye for now,
Valerie and Peter

Things we learned in Cafayate:
-A corkscrew is invaluable
-Tannat is amazing
-Eating at 10pm is extremely annoying

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Comments

[katrina]

Is it just me, or is does each place on this trip just get better and better?

[Teija]

you lucky bum
Hey guys, i'm sooo jealous, a few day of visiting wineries sounds amazing :) Glad to hear you're having so much fun! Did you have any mishaps while drinking and biking? lol