South America - Clean Breaks: 500 New Ways to See the World - page 257

planting with cycles of the moon; the vines are
also watered with a traditional irrigation system
whereby water is dispersed throughout the
land by gravity, rather than using power-driven
pressure hoses.
But does it all make for better wine? Organic
wine aficionados seem to think so. The
theory behind it is that the intense sunlight
experienced at high altitude produces thicker
grape skins that contain lots of different
phenolic compounds in the wine. So expect
“intense colour, fresh acidity and silky-smooth
tannins”.

339 tHe world'S HigHeSt
vineyard, argentina

Wine connoisseurs will tell you there are many
things you can understand about a wine from
its aroma, taste and look, including alcohol and
tannin content, age and “vitality”. But taste
a Malbec produced from Bodega Colomé and
you can also taste one other vital ingredient:
altitude.
Estancia Colomé is the world's highest
commercial vineyard. In the foothills of the
Andes, it's the vision of Swiss art collector and
winemaker Donald Hess, who has transformed
a former bodega and vineyard in the Calchaquí
Valley (2300m above sea level) into a five-star
hotel and successful organic wine estate. There
are nine lavishly decorated suites, each with
their own fireplace and a private terrace with
spectacular views of the mountains. You can
take a tour of the vineyards and gardens, walk
round a contemporary art museum, swim in a
large outdoor pool or take a look at the huge
hydroturbine, which produces eighty percent of
the estate's electricity.
Most people, however, come to Colomé to
taste its internationally renowned Malbec
wines and learn about the estate's particular
style of winemaking. Hess practises a form of
biodynamic agriculture that coordinates organic

Need to know To get from Buenos Aires to Salta
you can either fly (6 daily; 2hr) or catch a bus
(hourly; 18hr) and then take the daily bus to Molinos
(a scenic 4hr trip), from where you'll be collected,
by arrangement. For prices, reservations and details
of activities and accommodation see W www.
estanciacolome.com; T [phone].

340 adrenaline-fuelled
excitement in colomBia

Colombia has a reputation as the world's cocaine
supplier but now another white stuff is also
making headlines: water. Rafting and other
adventure sports have taken off in places such
as the Chicamocha canyon - and now a new

Estancia Colomé: the highest
vineyard in the world