Salta to Cafayate Wine Route

Your guide is waiting at Salta Airport to take you to the hotel. In the afternoon comes a half-day city tour. Salta was founded in 1582 and still has a Hispanic character that distinguishes it from other Argentine capitals, with colonial façades on its houses and churches. You visit churches, the National University and museums of Salteño culture, then San Bernardo Hill for the view. After that it is 10 km (6 mi) to San Lorenzo, a summer village at the foot of its ravine, with green country around it and the nearby village of Lesser. The artisan market comes last, then your hotel for the night.

The day is the drive. Leave Salta and climb the Cuesta del Obispo to Piedra del Molino, the Stone Mill, at 3,400 meters above sea level. On the way down you pass through the Recta del Tin Tin and Los Cardones National Park, and then you reach Cachi. The Calchaquí Valleys are known for colors and terrain that keep changing. Expect it. Route 40, the most emblematic road in the west of Argentina, carries you on to Cafayate. Your hotel there is where the last Realist Governor of Salta Province once lived.

One thing is on the list for today, and it is optional. In the morning you can book a visit to the ruins of Quilmes, the last indigenous settlement in the Calchaquí Valley. It is bookable, not included. It is also a proper walk through the ruins, part anthropological, part historical, part scenery. If ruins are your thing, book it. If not, leave the day empty. Tomorrow is wine.

Breakfast at the hotel, then the wine. The tour takes in two wineries positioned as some of the best in the Calchaquí Valley. They could be a western pair, such as San Pedro de Yacochuya and Piattelli, or an eastern pair, such as El Esteco and El Porvenir de los Andes. The Museum of the Vine and Wine is part of the day too. At each winery you walk through the facilities and taste the best wine it produces, with a sommelier explaining the wine, the vine and the cellar. Ask why the Torrontés tastes the way it does. Afternoon: back to your hotel in Cafayate for the night.

You come back to Salta by a different road than the one you left on, through the Gorge of Cafayate. The route offers stops at some of its rock formations, such as the amphitheater, the Castles and the Devil's Throat, among others. Back in Salta, your driver takes you to the airport for your flight to your next destination, or to your hotel if you want to extend your stay.