Bodegas Of Cafayate

We left for Cafayate as early as we could on the 23rd of October in order to do the beautiful drive through the Valley of the Rio las Conchas (Quebrada de Cafayate) while it was still light out. This drive along the highway was one of the most stunning, scenic drives I’ve ever done. The colors of the canyons and valleys we drove through were spectacular (in some places similar to Northern Argentina), but what was even more impressive was the strange rock formations. At some points it looked like we were on Mars, or some other strange planet! The best part about it all was that instead of paying a bunch of money for a tour to this amazing piece of nature, it was all including in our bus journey to Cafayate. Yay!

The drive to Cafayate had been quite long, so we didn’t arrive until the evening. Colin and I immediately fell in love with this small and friendly town nestled in the mountains. The people were welcoming and the food was delicious (we shared a three course meal that including a nice locro stew, an Argentina classic dish from the Cuyo or wine-producing region of Argentina.) We had a blast walking around and visiting some artisan shops after dinner, seeing this small place and planning our winery visits, also called bodegas here!

 

The morning of October 24th we planned to visit some bodegas – wineries! To start everything off, we would go to the Museum of Wine near our hostel. This museum was by far one of the strangest museums I’ve ever been to – not, unfortunately, for the content! It was really informative about wine, but every single information sign in the museum was written in a very kitschy, ‘wine is my God’ poetry of-sorts which struck Colin and I as really strange. Some of the signs were so obscure in their attempt to be ‘artsy’ that they were nonsensical and slightly annoying to read… maybe unless you’ve had a few glasses already!

The museum brought us through the history of wine in the Calchaqui Valleys, telling us at one point that the reason wine is so good in the area is because: “…the night of Cafayate spreads out her luminous cape… [so] you are suddenly dazzled, hallucinated and ecstatic by the unexpected wonder. You forget you belong to the earth. And hand oneself to infinity.”

Moreover, the grapes in the region grow so well because: “…the Cafayatean soil is a sand protégée, a lunar desert of severe clay and old Andean minerals. In those sands burning by day and frozen by night, in that desert where green seems impossible, man and water every day know how to awaken the spring. Beyond the spring is the wine but before the wine is the fruit, the water, the sun, the man, and the seed. And in the origin of everything a mother wise and generous: the earth.”

(A mother earth whose greatest gift to mankind according to the museum? Yep, wine.) 

We spent out time in the museum laughing at the ridiculousness of the signage and sifting through its contents to find the important pieces of information about the wine-making process. Basically, Cafayate argues their clean and cold Andean water combined with their poor and sandy/dry soil and desert climate make for fantastic ‘high-altitude’ wines. Yes, it seems counterintuitive but good wine apparently comes from poor soil. If a vine is planted in rich, fertile soil there would be lots of natural ability for the vine to grow its leaves and branches- and it therefore wouldn’t have to spend effort growing its roots in order to go deep into the soil for water and nutrients. If a vine is planted in poor soil, it has to switch this effort into growing its roots in order to reach deep water, nutrients, and thus survive.

Lack of water for these grapes keeps the berries few and small, therefore intensifying the sweetness of the grapes on the vine due to more sugar present in them as a nutrient storage. This high sugar/alcohol content leads to a stronger, tastier flavor for the wine. Similarly, deserts are a great place to grow wine because of the extreme differences in temperature between day and night. Very hot temperatures during the day forces the grape to produce more sugar, whereas the cold temperatures during the night cause the grape’s stomata to close which further maintains a strong flavor. All of these factors means Cafayate and its 340 days of dry, sunny climate is great for producing wines, starting from October (when the first bud breaks through) to February (when the grapes are harvested.)

Eventually we got to the second part of the museum which was less artsy and more straightforward. Here we learned that the first vineyards came to the Calchaqui Valley by the hand of the Spanish from Peru. In 1556 the colonizer Francisco of Aguirre sent the first vine stocks from Chile, and the Jesuits planted the first grapevines in the Calchaqui Valley. The Jesuits also helped pacify the indigenous people, which freed up land in the area for wine production. On display in this area were old machines used for production and photos of the past processes of making wine, and special displays about Torrontes’ popularity in the area. Since the 19th century Cafayate has been known for its Torrontes white wine, as Mendoza is for its Malbec. In fact, the Torrontes from Cafayate is so popular (even back then) that it was transported all the way to Salta by horse and cart, 30 at a time!  

After reading about wine for an hour or so we were ready to taste some! We had a quick snack first at one of the outdoor cafes in town, then headed to our tasting at the only organic certified bodega in Cafayate: Nanni. Nanni is a family-run winery, founded in 1897 by an Italian immigrant to Cafayate named Pietro Nanni. Since that time the winery has stayed in his family for generations; it is now continued by the fourth generation of his family.

First we gathered for a quick tour around the plant. The vineyards for Nanni weren’t at the plant, so we looked at the machines which produce the wine. Our guide brought us first to the grape-pressing machine which smashes the grapes with the skins (for the wine’s color) into a mix which is then put into containers to ferment. Additional flavors ‘picked up’ by the wine depend on what kind of container the fermentation takes place in – stainless steel, American oak, or French oak barrels. (The American oak gives a more ‘wood’ flavor to the wine than the French oak, which gives a more ‘vanilla’ flavor.) Once the wine is ready, it is then bottled (and corked, using the machine below) and continues to age in the bottle. We tried the “young wines,” those that had not been aged for very long (some just 6 months in the bottle!)         

At the tasting we got to try four different kinds of Nanni wine. This was our little results on the different types:

1. Torrontes: This white wine was light and fruity; it was Colin’s favorite because it reminded him of peach/pineapple.

2. Rosato/Rose: This wine wasn’t very strong, in fact it was a bit watery but still not bad.

3. Tannat: This red wine was very dry, strong and full-bodied; it was my favorite of the wines and Colin found it was similar to a Shiraz.

4. Torrentes Tardio: This wine wasn’t very nice at all; we both found it to be very sweet and like perfume, as if it were a cleaning product.    

That evening Colin and I went out to dinner again – while we had a good time, the food wasn’t great (nor was the service) and it couldn’t be saved by the folk dancing. At least we got to bring our dessert course home with us for the freezer, because the ice-cream came still in its plastic wrapper!

 

We had two wineries planned for the following day – the first a more lux winery a taxi journey outside of town called Piattelli where we planned to have lunch, and the second a simple place called Domingo Hermanos back in town. The taxi journey out to Piattelli was a fantastically scenic ride… a beautiful way to see the country around Cafayate. Once we arrived we had a fantastic lunch of carrot soup for Colin and a corn-based creamy tart dish for me. Served with lots of delicious herb-infused breads! Following our meal we met up with our group and the guide began to bring us around the bodega… starting with the vineyards!  

 

The first place we all went was the Piattelli Bodega vineyards, which were among the mountains and absolutely stunning. Our guide showed us the little baby grapes growing on the vines, still totally green and without much shape. Once the grapes at Piattelli have grown to their best-tasting size, they are inspected and sorted for the best quality grapes. Next, these grapes are placed into a machine called the “de-stemmer” which removes their stems and crushes them along with their skins and seeds in order to get a robust color for the pulp or must. This pulp is then placed into stainless steel containers to ferment. As the pulp ferments the skin or lees rises to the top of the tanks. This “hat” is manually pushed down 3 times per day which basically “stirs the pot” and ends up resulting in more interaction between the fruit and the wine.

 

We then walked down into the cellar where we could see a long ‘hallway’ of dozens of wine-filled oak barrels waiting for their bottling time. The guide at Piattelli told us that their premium wines went through the same process as grapes, but while they are pulp their wine is pumped over the top of the hat 3 times a day, instead of the hat being pushed down – which provides even more of a mix. These premium wines are kept in separate oak barrels from the other wines (for 8-9 months), and quality controls/tastings happen monthly until the wine has finished fermenting. The company also produces Grand Reserve wines which are in the barrel even longer (for 12-13 months) which are pricier. Each of these oak barrel is only used for 3 vintages – after this the flavors “wears off.” 

 

 

Next we had our wine tasting which included 3 premium wines by Piattelli: a Torrontes, a Malbec, and a Cabernet Sauvignon. We started with the Torrontes which was fantastic – Colin and I both really enjoyed this one, and would have bought a bottle if we hadn’t been traveling the next day! I thought Piattelli’s Torrontes had just enough of a sweet, fruity flavor (which probably comes from its aging in French oak barrels) to be perfect. Then came the Malbec, another delicious wine by Piattelli. We thought this one was nice, it wasn’t however as “full-bodied” as other Malbecs, because it was a pretty young wine. After all, the vineyard has only been producing wine for six year! Finally we tried the medium-bodied, chocolate-flavored Cabernet which ended up being one Colin really enjoyed, a wine that was aged for 12 months in oak barrels then for 6 more months in the bottle. As we tried each type we were shown by the guide how to smell the wine for its flavors, then spin the glass to get air into the wine, and smell it again to find new flavors. She also taught us how to clean the glasses with a small bit of wine before changing from one wine to another, and how to look at the ‘legs’ in the wine, which run down the glass and can tell you about the quality of the wine.

 

 

 

 

Not finished with bodegas for the day, Colin and I decided to take a taxi back into Cafayate and go to Bodega Domingo Hermanos, a local family winery. While there was no English-speaking guide for this tour (and the woman there put us on a tour that had already started!) we still had fun walking around the beautifully scenic vineyards and watching the bottle packaging, labeling, and corking of the wine which is done by hand. At our tasting we were given a ton of different wines to try, but sadly none of them were much good! Especially after we’d been spoiled by all the great wines at Piattelli.     

 

The next day we had a relaxing day in our hostel where we spent time catching up on some admin work. We got a bus out of town in the evening towards Villa Union, which was quite a mess to get to from Cafayate, as there are no direct buses and we had to spend a few hours in the bus station at La Rioja, the capital of the province. As we left the city we passed by an archeological site called the Ruins of Quilmes. We didn’t get a chance to visit this while there (mostly because while the site is important, it really is just a bunch of re-built stones now,) but I’ll tell you something about it anyways!

The site is massive, taking up 30 expansive hectares right next to a beautiful mountain filled with cactus. It has been reconstructed heavily, which takes away some of the charm but also helps to preserve the location and its people’s story. The Quilmes/indigenous Diaguita people (the Diaguita people were made up of many different yet related tribes) lived in this fortified city of 5,000 occupants before the Inca, and then the Spanish, invaded and attempted to take them over. The Diaguita were apparently a forceful people, and really kept their stronghold for a long time compared to other indigenous tribes at the time. The Spanish did defeat the group and its last remaining people eventually ended up in the city of Quilmes (which is also the city the Argentine beer Quilmes is named after.)

We had a crazy bus journey to our next destination (and at times, pretty scary as it was high up in the mountains!) but we made it there without any major problems. I’ll let Colin take over the writing from here!

Francesca