Chilecito

Chilecito in La Rioja Province sits in the Famatina Valley at 1,074 metres, surrounded by the highest non-volcanic peaks in the western hemisphere and connected to a former goldmine 22 kilometres up the mountain by one of the most extraordinary engineering projects of early-twentieth-century South America — a cable car system built by the Germans in 1904 that carried ore down from 4,600 metres and is now rusting in silence at each of its nine stations above the town. The wine being produced in the surrounding valley is discovering an international audience thirty years later than Mendoza, which is why it still sells at 1990 prices.

Chilecito is the second-largest city in La Rioja Province and the commercial centre of the Famatina Valley, surrounded by the Famatina system — peaks exceeding 6,000 metres that represent the highest point in the world at this latitude (29°S) outside the Himalaya and Karakoram. The Guanchín cable car (La Mejicana), built 1903-1904 by the Compañía Minera de Chilecito, ran 22 kilometres from the town at 1,074 metres to the La Mejicana mine at 4,619 metres and is now preserved as a national monument, with most of its nine stations intact and accessible to hikers and 4WD vehicles. The surrounding valley produces Torrontés, Bonarda, and Cabernet Sauvignon at elevations between 900 and 1,200 metres, and the Cooperativa La Riojana — founded in 1940 — is the largest Argentine wine cooperative by volume. The Cuesta de Miranda, 35 kilometres north, is among the most dramatic mountain roads in the country.