Codpa Valley

The desert drops away without warning. One moment the road crosses bare rock and dust; 200 vertical metres later, fig trees shade irrigated terraces where grapevines heavy with pintatani fruit hang over channels that have carried water since before the Inca arrived. Codpa Valley in Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region is a green wound in the Atacama, a hidden oasis that produces wine from a grape variety grown commercially in this single canyon and nowhere else on Earth.

The pintatani grape was brought to Codpa by Spanish missionaries in the 1600s. It never spread beyond this valley. The resulting wine — and the chicha de uva produced from the April harvest — has been made here continuously for 400 years without industrial processing. The terraced fields predate the Inca, and the irrigation system that feeds them is still in operation, channelling water from high-altitude springs through hand-cut stone conduits. The valley also grows guava and tumbo fruit, subtropical crops that have no business surviving in the driest desert on the planet. Community-run lodges offer meals of llama with quinoa and access to the terraces themselves, where the agricultural rhythm of planting, irrigating, and harvesting has not changed in centuries.