Varietal de Altura

Napa Valley meets Tucson meets Southern Utah….

When you think of altitudes above 6,500 feet do you think of Saguaro like cactus, huge rock outcroppings with tons of grape vines mixed in?  We didn’t either until we visited the fascinating (and oh so tasty) Cafayate Valley in the state of Salta in Northern Argentina.  Who would have guessed that grapes grown at high altitude make excellent wine.  Although relatively unknown the grape farmers and wine makers in this region definitely know what they are doing and are turning out some exceptional Cabs, Malbecs, and Torrontes.

 We tasted many different varietals and wanted to ship cases and cases home but unfortunately they don’t have the ability to ship mass quantities to the US.  It was like we were tasting wine in Napa Valley 25 years ago - no crowds, no pretensions, just great varietals, this time of the high altitude kind.  We found only one thing that this region could improve - make stronger cork screws!  We broke two of them while tasting our "to-go" samples.