While staying in Salta we decided to rent a car for a couple of days and take a road trip around the Valle Calchaquies, south of Salta. The region is famous for its nature and wine and the roads we took had some of the most beautiful scenery we had seen in the country so far. The mountains with their contrasting colours make up a super colourful palette and the cacti give it a slight wild western feel. The area was inhabited by many tribes and was most noticeably taken over by the Inca empire, and many years later eventually by the Spanish as well. Most of the names of the towns still have Quechua origins (Cachi, Cafayate).
Our trip took us down to Cafayate and the Quebrada de Cafayate, an area which has some of the best vineyards in Argentina. The area has the perfect weather as it has very low humidity and on average less than 250mm of rain per year which produces a good quality wine. The most characteristic wine of the regions is the Torrontés. There are three different types of Torrontés in Argentina, Torrontés Riojano, the most common, Torrontés Sanjuanino, and Torrontés Mendocino. It is a white wine, which I’m not a big fan of, but my completely inexpert opinion can tell you it’s pretty good; a little sour but goes down nicely 🙂
During our trip we also had some wine-flavoured ice-cream. It came in two flavours: white torrontés and red cabernet. The Heladería Miranda where it’s made claims they put a decent amount of alcohol in it and after a few scoops it begins to kick in. However they don’t ID and the lady even had a medic father buy a scoop for his three year old son!
Luckily the boys had a real Italian coffee maker with them and a portable gas stove so we made regular coffee breaks in the beautiful nature
Reenactment of the Sistine Chapel
We love our cabernet flavoured ice cream
The vineyards
I want all of it!
The infamous Torrontés