Getting Lost in Bolivia's Wine Lands, Storied Mines, and Haunting Salt Flats

It is never really about the wine tasting. The balance of those subtle notes of blackberry with a finish of vanilla and leather is secondary. Wine is about landscapes and places. It is about culture and stories and the rich cast of characters: impassioned eccentrics and erudite enologists, enthusiastic amateurs and old landed families, their histories as convoluted as soap operas. Bolivian wines may not feature in many global wine shops, but in Bolivia, as is often the case, vineyards lead to some of the most interesting people in the country.

I had come to the windswept altiplano in Bolivia's southwest corner, between the eastern and western cordilleras of the Andes. This vast and bleakly beautiful plateau tips away toward snow-capped mountains and empty reaches of sky. There are cactus-strewn badlands and arid highlands of lava flows; there are gulches and canyons with strange rock formations. I wanted to visit Potosí, one of the oldest colonial cities in the Americas, and to see the astonishing Salar de Uyuni, where new lodges have transformed the tourist experience of the salt flats. But first I wanted to drop down into the narrow fertile valleys that cut unexpectedly through the altiplano and find the winemakers around the old towns of Tarija and Tupiza, a region that surely made the first conquistadors homesick for Andalusia due to its haunting resemblance to southern Spain.

If there is a Wild West feeling to Bolivian towns, with those sleepy squares of flat-fronted buildings where men, their hats tipped over their eyes, doze on chairs tilted back against walls, it may explain the country's appeal to revolutionaries and runaways, to exiles and outlaws. Che Guevara was killed here in the 1960s trying to foment revolution among Bolivian peasants. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were drawn here in about 1906 to make use of the superb bank-robbing opportunities and are said to have met their end just up the road from Tupiza in a hail of bullets.

North of Tupiza in the Cinti Valley, astride the old smugglers' route from Potosí to Buenos Aires, I had lunch at San Pedro, which, having been founded in the 16th century, is one of the region's oldest vineyards. Graceful whitewashed buildings were set around the cobbled courtyards. Bougainvillea tumbled, fountains trickled, staff scurried, cooking fires blazed beneath ancient stone ovens. My guide and I were ushered into the dining room, where a long table was set with silver cutlery, delicate porcelain, and a bewildering array of engraved glasses. A waiter hovered. Dour portraits looked down from the walls, French windows were open to the vineyards below, and in the salon was a piano made on the rue de Rivoli in Paris.

Eighty-something Lorgio Jaime Rivera Calabi held court at the head of the table, his eyes swimming in a face like parchment. He was a gracious host, given to long-winded toasts I struggled to follow. At the other end of the table was his 17-year-old daughter, Luciana, the knowledgeable heir to the estate who watched her aged father with a mixture of concern and admiration. Production at San Pedro is now focused on its famous singani, a white grape brandy and the Bolivian national drink. He poured a small glassful and explained its religious significance, how it was not just a drink but a libation. People used it to bless the dead, to pay tribute to gods, to seal an agreement. “May you be as fortunate in your children as I have been,” he said, raising his glass. The old eyes seemed to fill. Luciana, embarrassed, looked away to the vines of muscatel beyond the French windows.

The previous day I had been with Germán Villamor, who, tragically, had been less fortunate with his children. His was a more recent arrival in the world of wines. The Tierra Roja estate was created by his son, Cristian, who had struggled with the idea of the family business; Villamor owned the Bolivian equivalent of Hallmark cards. After a course in viticulture in Italy, Cristian had planted a vineyard of Cabernet in the Cinti Valley. Then suddenly, in 2016, he died of an aneurysm at the age of 37.

Heartbroken, Villamor sold his business and came to the town of Villa Abecia to continue his son's work. “Cristian wasn't interested in making money,” he said as he showed us around the vineyard. “He wasn't driven by commercial instincts. But he had a passion, and I have come to run the winery to honor him.” He brought in experienced enologists to advise him and planted more vines as well as citrus fruit trees. After a few years his wines began to win prizes. One vintage was bought by Central, a Lima restaurant that's among the best in the world. He told us to always harvest Malbec grapes at night because they will hold their flavors better. And to never prune under a full moon because the cuts will weep.

Leading us down the rows of vines with his walking stick, Villamor was like a pilgrim seeking solace for a battered soul. In the midst of the vines, he stopped by a headstone, his son's grave. “Even if you don't see me or feel me, I am by your side,” the inscription read. “We make a wine called Hummingbird,” said Villamor. “Sometimes when I hear the birds hum, I feel it is my son speaking to me, saying he is happy with my work here. My son's death gave me a new life. I want Cristian to be proud of me.” He stretched his arms to encompass the vineyard, the verdant valley, the wide sky. “Life here is beautiful,” he said, smiling. “I am so grateful to him.”

I found my soul's solace at the San Francisco de la Horca winery. Its owner, Marcelo Vacaflores Ramírez, is a slight man in his 60s with a mischievous, elfin air. He showed us around his bodega, full of equipment assembled in another age: oak barrels, huge earthen pots whose clay lent a particular flavor to his wine. The whole place marinated in the rich, musty odor of fermenting grapes. “We are four generations here,” he said. “I was born here. I am like one of the old cepas de uva—the grape vines.” In the courtyard of the house, we sat under the shade of the loggia while Ramírez talked about the different wines and vintages as if they were personalities, close friends whom he was keen we should know and like. He appeared from the depths of the old house with platters of goat cheese and cured meats. He gleefully opened bottles (the labels handwritten; the corks sealed with beeswax) and poured wine, then more. There was a big Burgundy-style red made from the Negra Criolla grape and a wonderful Muscat of Alexandria white.

I began to lose track. We had been traveling for several days, and now we were becalmed in this sylvan paradise, behind a high garden wall, among fragrant lavender bushes and the sound of birdsong. The glasses of wine kept arriving and I felt I never wanted to leave. The afternoon light filtered down through the yellow-flowering jacaranda trees. We tried the singani, treating it with due respect. This was followed by an exquisite cognac-style drink. We rounded off our tasting with an astonishing pomegranate liqueur. I was lifted from my seat reluctantly as the guide helped me into the car.

In Potosí we stepped from passion to greed. Dating from 1545, Potosí owes its existence to a single and singular pyramid-shaped mountain that looms above the city streets. Cerro Rico, or Rich Mountain, was the world's most profitable source of silver. Carried across the ocean in galleons, dodging storms and English pirates (Francis Drake was said to have plundered about $600 million worth of silver in today's money), it made the Spanish monarchs the wealthiest in Europe. It was the silver used to mint Spanish dollars, or pieces of eight, the world's first international currency. It funded wars against the English, the Dutch, and the French. It is thought to have caused rampant inflation across Europe and sparked a global trade in luxury goods such as Chinese porcelain and Indian textiles.

In Potosí it financed the grandiose palaces and churches that line the narrow streets. Greed is in the very mortar of the buildings—exaggerated and self-important. In the basement of the colossal Casa Nacional de la Moneda, the national mint, I found the smelting rooms where enslaved Africans worked the furnaces in inhumane temperatures. The guide described how these poor souls never survived longer than six months.

Cerro Rico still towers over the rooftops. And silver, tin, and zinc continue to be mined here. In the course of yielding about 66,000 tons of silver, the mountain has also sent an estimated 9 million men to an early grave, the victims of silicosis, toxic gases, mercury poisoning, tunnel collapses, dynamite accidents, and sheer exhaustion. Local guides say that as many as 20,000 men still work in the mine in conditions that have hardly changed since the 16th century.

We had arranged to go inside, with a former miner acting as our tour guide. On our way to the mountain, we stopped to buy obligatory gifts for the workers: coca leaves, black cigarettes, a bottle of pure cane alcohol that was 96 percent ABV, and sticks of dynamite. Kitted up in overalls, helmets, and rubber boots, we climbed to an entrance tunnel, above which llama blood had been smeared across the rock face. We followed the guide inside, stooping to avoid banging our heads on the low ceiling. Behind us the circle of daylight at the entrance grew smaller and smaller as we stumbled along the tunnel.

Suddenly there was a loud rattling, and the lights of head torches danced upon the walls ahead. We pressed against the tunnel wall as an ore cart clattered past on tracks. Coming up from the bowels of the mountain, two grimy miners, their faces running with sweat, were pushing the cart. Then there was darkness, and we fumbled with our torches to see where we were going. Cerro Rico felt like the depths of hell. I loved it.

There was a devil in this hell. His name is El Tío, The Uncle. We found him just beyond the point where the last ray of daylight could be seen. In a side alcove squatted a strange mannequin, covered in coca leaves and colored ribbons, sporting a huge erect phallus and a leering smile. This demonic figure, considered the Lord of the Mountain, presides over the mine. To keep the miners safe, he requires tribute. Bottles were piled by his feet as gifts. I spotted one of San Pedro singani. Packets of cigarettes had been stuffed into his stumpy hands. The sacrificial llama blood smeared above the entrance was a way to assuage his lust for blood that otherwise might only be satisfied by the death of a miner.

From Potosí we drove west across the high plateau framed by russet hills, past llamas and vicuñas grazing on tough grasses. Aloof and superior, they turned their heads to watch us, pursing their lips and batting long eyelashes. As we rose over the shoulder of a mountain dusted with green shrubs, we looked down from the pass onto a vast plain. Below was a great expanse of white, like a shining sea: the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia's most famous salt flat. At more than 4,000 square miles, it is less than half the size of New Jersey. It's said that Neil Armstrong could see it from space. The silhouettes of dark mountains stood around its white rim.

My base in this moonscape was a new upscale lodge, Jirira, created by high-end Chilean tour operator Explora, which takes clients on La Travesía: a bespoke journey between its sharply designed properties. From Jirira, visitors can travel across volcano ranges to the Ramaditas and Chituca lodges in Bolivia, and over the border to Explora Atacama in the Chilean desert.

Until now accommodations on our wanderings had been rambling atmospheric estancias—old-fashioned colonial properties with courtyards—with rooms the size of squash courts decorated with charming antiques. Special mention goes to Hotel Museo Cayara, one of the oldest Spanish houses in South America, close to Potosí. Built in 1557, it has many portraits of Iberian monarchs, along with muskets, dueling pistols, armor with a dented breast plate, and a library of priceless 17th-century books bound in goatskin, including a daunting 61-volume set of Voltaire. The stories of the house were like a child's book of adventures. Marquises came and went, marriages were arranged, wars raged, silver was discovered. I prowled through the back rooms, hoping to find a cupboard where sacks full of pieces of eight were hidden.

Explora Jirira Lodge, however, was on another level. At first glance the building, sitting on a ridge above the flats, seemed to consist of three long shipping containers, curiously suited to this angular landscape. Designed by Chilean architect Max Núñez, the prefabricated modular structures were installed on stilts to have minimal impact and to allow them to be removed and repurposed. Inside, the industrial feel fell away. The interiors have an elegant simplicity, all space and light; the walls are lined with Bolivian wood, the pale furnishings are deep and inviting, the artwork reflects the flora and fauna. There is an open kitchen and two long tables for communal dinners. Designed by Mauricio López and Sebastián Giménez, of hit La Paz restaurant Ancestral, the menus are proudly Bolivian, using the country's fabulous ingredients, cooked and served by locals. The lodge is one of the finest properties in Bolivia.

Few places on earth are as astonishing as the Salar de Uyuni. With a fine-gravel-like surface, its far-reaching expanses glitter and sparkle. In the morning I woke to see just beneath my room flocks of flamingos, which live on the mineral marsh on the edge of the salt flats, and waited for them to rise as one and sail away, a wave of pink. We climbed K'ajchi Island, a small volcano that erupted from the seabed when the salt flats were ocean, its slopes teeming with white butterflies and strange cacti on whose flowers giant hummingbirds fed. We drove to the high shoulders of Tunupa volcano, where locals had piled cairns in tribute to the apu, or mountain spirits. Its half-collapsed cone was a riot of mineral color: red iron, yellow sulfur, and white sodium set among protrusions of black basalt. At night, brilliant constellations swarmed across the sky with such clarity I felt they might cascade down across my bed.

For much of the year, stretches of the salt flats are covered in a couple of inches of water, creating a canvas of reflections. As I walked out into this mirrored world, the only things that moved were the reflections of the clouds, slowly drifting past, ravelling and unraveling around my feet. Without the usual prompts to assess scale, all sense of perspective was lost. There was no way to measure size or distance. It was a vast and peaceful nothingness. In this white void the stillness and silence were profound. The landscape of the salar, with mountains ghosting around the horizons on their reversed images, became a meditation. It was humbling. It offered the welcome gift of making me feel insignificant. And nothing is quite so good for the soul.

Dehouche can arrange an 11-night Bolivian trip covering Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the wine region, Potosí, the salt flats, and La Paz, with all-inclusive accommodations and flights, from $17,740 per person. This article appeared in the November 2026 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.