Bodega Colomé

Bodega Colomé in Salta Province sits at 2,300 metres in the Calchaquí Valleys, making it one of the highest wineries in the world — and the vineyards above it, at Altura Máxima, rise to 3,111 metres, the highest vineyard in the world, producing a Malbec so different from its Mendoza equivalent that wine critics describe them as effectively different varieties. The bodega was restored and expanded by Swiss businessman Donald Hess in 2001 and contains the most important permanent collection of James Turrell light art outside the United States, installed in a purpose-built museum on the estate.

Bodega Colomé is a winery with certified vineyards dating to 1831, making it Argentina's oldest continuously operated wine estate, set in a remote valley of the Calchaquí Mountains in Salta Province. The estate's extreme altitude — vineyards between 2,300 and 3,111 metres — produces grapes with exceptionally thick skins and high concentrations of anthocyanins (the compounds responsible for red wine colour and some tannic structure), due to the intense ultraviolet radiation at altitude. The Museum of James Turrell Light Works, opened in 2009, contains nine permanent installations by the American artist — light rooms in which colour and dimension are perceived directly without reference to shape — and is the most significant contemporary art installation in the Argentine northwest. The estate hotel, with nine rooms in the original colonial bodega buildings, is one of the most remote luxury accommodation options in the country.