Cafayate: Wines and Wilderness

Vines in Cafayate

Cafayate is a wine growing town in the Salta province in Northern Argentina. The town boasts several bodegas within easy walking distance, so wine tasting is a popular activity in the town.

Bodega Domingo Hermanos

Bodega Domingo Hermanos is within the town itself and runs tastings along with a short tour of the winery. As with most wineries in the area, they produce Malbec and Torrentes wines. The Malbec from this winery was particularly good.

Bodega Nani

Bodega Nanni has a wider variety of wines on tasting and an excellent Tannat.

Bodega El Tránsito

Across the road from Nani is the El Transito bodega which has a small range of wines on tasting - none of which stood out particularly.

Further afield (about 1 km from town) is the Estreco bodega which has an extensive variety of wine on tasting.

Bodega Estreco

This bodega, along with a very good malbec, produces an excellent Chardonnay under the "Circulo" label.

Even further afield (5km) is the Mounier bodega.

Bodega Mounier

This bodega is situated under the surrounding hills and the walk to the winery gives views across Cafayate.

The road to Mounier

The view from the road

Apart from the excellent wines, Cafayate is close to an interesting set of coloured mountains, The Quebrada.

The coloured hills of the Quebrada

There are several tour companies in Cafayate that can drive you to do several short hikes through the incredible landscape.

Many colours

There are many formations created by the erosion of wind and rain such as the Window:

And The Toad:

There are also several deep gorges such as The Devil's Throat

The Devil's Throat with people for scale

And The Amphitheatre, where concerts are held occasionally to take advantage of the acoustics of the gorge.

The Amphitheatre

Apart from the interesting formations the scenery of the Quebrada itself is quite spectacular.

View from Tres Cruces

The valley from Tres Cruces