While it may have started out as a normal town, Cafayate is now a genuine Tourist Destination. Their claim to fame is wine, and lots of it. The town itself is very small and completely surrounded by vineyards. You can visit most of them and the producers who are more than a 1o minute walk from town have bodegas in the town center.
Our favorite wine was Nanni, one of Argentina’s few organics. We visited the bodega one day and bought a bottle, then returned the next day to buy more!
Cafayate specializes in a grape called torrontes, a white brought over from France. The French no longer grow it and it is currently only grown in Argentina, mostly in Cafayate. It’s a very fruity white, not super dry. It’s great for a hot summer day. My wine knowledge is limited, so I’ll leave it at that. However, I can recommend picking up a bottle if you ever see it in the store.
Other than drinking wine and eating good food, our only other “event” in Cafayate was a bee sting on one of my fingers. Not a big deal at first, but it was swollen to the point that I lost all movement for three days! The campsite hippies were very concerned and helpful with home (or should I say tent?) remedies. Though I’m not sure they helped, it was nice that they wanted to help out. Thankfully the wine more than made up for my little “injury”.
[...] Walla reminded us of Cafayate, our favorite wine town in Argentina. Both are small, originally agricultural towns that have [...]