Extreme High-Altitude Wines from Argentina's Northern Valleys

BY JOAQUÍN HIDALGO | FEBRUARY 04, 2021

In the northwest of Argentina, there is a chain of magical valleys, weird and wonderful landscapes where the air at high altitude is so thin it can leave you gasping for breath. The endless deserts and ravines are, remarkably, producing wines of such extraordinary power that they rarely fail to seduce visitors to the area and connoisseurs much farther afield. 

There are plenty of romantic legends about the northwestern valleys of Argentina. Like the Wild West in the US - we’re talking hundreds of miles north of Mendoza and west of Buenos Aires - these high-altitude wines obey no laws but their own. And strange things happen in lawless regions. Eminently worldly people such as the Swiss businessman Donald Hess (Hess Collection, Estancia Colomé) was bewitched in 1998 by a raw, brutal red (in this case RD, which is included in this report) to such a degree that he decided it would be his place in the world. And then there’s Michel Rolland, who back in 1988 fell in love with the tough, mineral landscape when he set foot in the Calchaquí Valley for the first time - a legendary moment in Calchaquí wine lore. Or the prickly spines of the cardón - the towering cacti that grace the mountain slopes like shepherds looking after flocks of sheep  - that persuaded another man from Switzerland, the mountaineer Cristian Göetz (Bodega Adentro), to start making wines in Cachi. 

Fernando Dupont first planted vineyards in Maimará, Quebrada de Humahauca, in 2004. The contrast between the dry mountain slopes and lush green of the vineyards is typical of the region. The winery can be seen in the background.  

The list of those who have fallen under the spell of northwestern Argentina is long and distinguished. But all these stories began with a bottle that so well reflected the wild landscape and the determination of people that they kept coming back for more.

Looking to find out a little more about where these bottles came from, last December I managed to negotiate my way through the maze of COVID-related permits to travel across Jujuy and Salta provinces, hoping to reproduce that spell and subject it to an exhaustive examination through the 250 wines featured here. This report comes with a warning for the terroir-sensitive reader: some of these wines are the real deal.

The Huichaira ravine – running from left to right – was the chosen home for Cielo Arriba, where it was founded. The thick foliage is encouraged to protect the grapes from the sun.

A Dystopian Tropic

In terms of wine regions, the northwest of Argentina consists of a chain of valleys that fall into two broad categories: the largest wine-producing area is the Calchaquí Valley, centered on the town of Cafayate and crossing through the provinces of Catamarca, Tucumán and Salta, which contains about 4,230 hectares of vineyards, the oldest of which were planted in colonial times with pre-phylloxera vines. La Quebrada de Humahuaca, meanwhile, is in the province of Jujuy. Vineyards there date back to the 2000s and only number about 20 hectares. Together they represent just 2% of the total surface area under vine in Argentina.

Even though they’re very different, these two large valleys - the Calchaquí Valley snakes for 150 miles along the Calchaquí and Santa Maria rivers, while the Quebrada de Humahuaca follows the course of the Río Grande for 90 miles - do have things in common, some in terms of terroir and others related to human geography. For example, the Quebrada (“ravine”) in Jujuy has been named a UNESCO Heritage Site because of its historical legacy, as it is the first place settled by the earliest inhabitants of what is now Argentina, about 10,000 years ago. The Calchaquí Valley, meanwhile, was built up on a legacy of irrigation systems, ancient agricultural terraces and primitive paths constructed by the Diaguita people before the arrival of the Inca (14th century) and Spanish (16th century) empires.

This lengthy history also features viticulture, which began in the 17th century with some vines, including the Criolla and Torrontés varieties, planted in domestic gardens and others as commercial vineyards. One lives and breathes history in the northwestern valleys: I’ve found arrowheads and the remains of large stone mortars - similar to those seen in Yacochuya or on the Amalaya estate - among the rows of vines. Some vineyards, such as Chañar Punco, even contain intact burial sites with ancient funeral urns.

Carolina and Gastón Cruz are the owners of Bodega El Milagro, in Purmamarca, Quebrada de Humahuaca. Carnaval Torrontés is made from two parcels at altitudes of  2,400 and 2,800 meters above sea level respectively. 

When it comes to terroir, the Quebrada de Humahuaca spans the Tropic of Capricorn at Huacalera, where Bodega Tukma’s eponymous vineyard is located. The low latitude - the equivalent of Rio de Janeiro or Brisbane - is a key factor in the life cycle of vines in both valleys. The way to ameliorate its effect is to go high: between 1,700 and 3,500 meters above sea level, depending on the valley and the region. Within just a few miles, warm areas such as Chimpa near Cafayate (which experiences temperatures comparable to Jerez) are transformed into cool zones such as Cachi Adentro or Urquía, where the temperature is similar to Champagne. But a harsh sun strong enough to crack solid rock beats down on both, and it gives no quarter to the vines either.

Because the sun shines so brightly through the thin mountain air, the shade cast by the vine leaves, which are quite different from the spikes and spines that cover the desert’s natural vegetation, is key. The combination is fairly difficult to assimilate and so apparently unsuitable for wine production that it’s something of a human miracle that the valleys contain fully irrigated (with both drip and flood systems) vineyards of Malbec (1,627ha), Cabernet Sauvignon (763ha), Tannat (137ha), Merlot (108ha) and Syrah (91ha) among the reds, and Torrontés (1,115ha), Sauvignon Blanc (49ha) and Chardonnay (39ha) among the whites, to name just a few. Almost all of them are planted in alluvial fans that spread out from the mountains in a mixture of soils on slopes of varying steepness and orientation, with a handful planted on pre-Colombian terraces. 

The traditional way to plant in the Calchaquí Valley is using the pergola system so as to protect the grapes from the sun. This makes it easy to tell newer vines from the older ones, some of which date back over a century. VSP (vertical shoot positioning) training only came into vogue in the late 1990s. Because of the widespread use of pergolas, harvest is done by hand while only large wineries use mechanical harvesters, accounting for about 10% of the overall harvest.

The Bodega Piattelli restaurant offers gorgeous views of Cafayate and a terrace on which to sample delicious empanadas and other regional and international delicacies.