Condor Valley: A Small, Independent World
When I told winemaker Duncan Meyer that I would be working a harvest in Patagonia, he recommended I make my way up to Salta’s Condor Valley and kindly put me in touch with owner, Hank Bannister. Hank and I grabbed a glass of wine at San Francisco’s Terroir to discuss the details of my trip back in February. I left the meeting with a better idea of what to expect but as it turned out, I had no idea what I was in for. CV was the first side trip I planned before I headed down to South America and the last place I ended up visiting before returning to the States. Travel-wise, this was the...
Read MoreIn Search of the North Andean Deer (“La Taruka”) at Condor Valley
by Dr. Michael Wisdom, Research Biologist, USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, La Grande OR US and Dr. Ricardo Ojeda, Research Mammalogist, National Council for Science and Technology of Argentina, CONICET, Mendoza, Argentina Condor Valley supports one of the most elusive and unique species of wildlife in all of Argentina. The North Andean deer (Hippocamelus antisensis), better known as the “taruka,” is a rare and little-known deer species that occupies high-elevation mountain grasslands of the Andes in southern Peru, southwestern Bolivia, northeastern Chile, and...
Read MoreMt. Creston
If you go to Condor Valley and take in the view from La Bodega, the most dominating landscape feature you will see is the dark and jagged ridge of rock called Mount Creston. At 10,300 feet it is the highest peak around and stands out against the skyline dark and ominous as a funeral procession. It was on this magnetic mountain that I spent three weeks with Gustavo Maras searching for the elusive and endangered taruka (see taruka project summary and expedition timeline). To reach Mt Creston requires at least eight hours on horseback through thorny shrubs and cactus, up impossibly steep slopes...
Read MoreThe Condors of ‘Condor Valley’
It was our first day in the Condor Valley back-country (see Taruka Expedition timeline). After a four hour ride Gustavo and I were climbing the knife edge ridge that towers at the back of the Peusto to take in the land. The ridge had narrowed to a sheer band of rock that is about a meter wide and inclines steeply to the summit. I was concentrating on a bit of technical scrambling when Gustavo pointed upwards and whispered a warning, “Euell, cuidado”. Not five meters overhead circled two condors. With their dark heads tracking us even as they continued in their gyre, it was clear the...
Read MoreWeek Two
Last week was an amazing one- I rode every day, got to experience eating some interesting things, and best of all I got to see and hang out with an old friend. The coincidence is astonishing- the one and only American I have seen since being in Argentina is a guy, who upon my arrival was high up in the mountains of the ranch studying a species of deer that is all but extinct. Come to find out that guy and I are childhood friends who grew up as neighbors in our hometown of 500 people in Northeast Oregon. Crazy or what? We hadn’t seen each other in years. Euell, who spent six weeks...
Read MoreThe Wine Tree
Accompanying this page you will see what we describe as La Bodega’s Wine Tree. Although at one point this abandoned farm is thought to have been one of the biggest early vineyards providing grapes to Salta City, previous owners long ago abandoned that endeavor in favor of cattle in the 1930s and onward. We believe our wine tree to be one of those early plantings and is probably in excess of one hundred years old. Certainly around the Calchiques Valley there are numerous examples of 100 plus year old vines that were brought over from France by the Catholic priests. On Bodega...
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