San Rafael

The valleys of the Diamante and Atuel lay on the southern frontier of Spanish Cuyo. Francisco de Villagra's expedition from Chile reached the Diamante in 1551, but for more than two centuries the land to the south belonged to the Pehuenche and other Indigenous peoples. After repeated conflict, a treaty of 1804 with the viceroy Rafael de Sobremonte opened the way for a fort, and on 2 April 1805 the Fuerte San Rafael del Diamante was built on the north bank of the Diamante, named in the viceroy's honour. Its site is today's Villa 25 de Mayo, which remained the seat of the department for a century.

The modern city was the work of immigrants. Around 1870 the French engineer Julio Gerónimo Balloffet settled in the area, built a fortified ranch and promoted irrigation, roads and public works; with his support his compatriot Rodolfo Iselin founded a French colony, and Italian and Spanish settlers formed colonies of their own nearby. By 1900 the orchards and vineyards had made the area prosperous. The railway arrived in November 1903, the seat of the department moved to the growing colony, and in 1922 it was formally declared a city.

The rail link brought fruit-packing and food industries, and the Plaza San Martín was laid out in 1925; the cathedral was built between 1935 and 1952. The rivers were then put to work: the Los Nihuiles hydroelectric system on the Atuel created the large El Nihuil reservoir, and Los Reyunos Dam on the Diamante followed in 1984. The reservoirs and the canyon between them turned San Rafael into southern Mendoza's tourist centre.

San Rafael's identity mixes the wine culture of Mendoza with a frontier town's attachment to the outdoors. The French, Italian and Spanish colonies left family names, wineries and farming traditions across the department, and the town's fine arts museum, founded in 1919, and its natural history, military and railway museums reflect a provincial city proud of its own past.

Like every department of Mendoza, San Rafael chooses a harvest queen who goes on to compete at the provincial Vendimia, and the grape harvest shapes the autumn calendar. Cuyo's folk music, the tonada and the cueca cuyana, is played at local festivals and gatherings. Motor sport has a following too: since 1968 the city's autodrome has staged rounds of national touring-car championships, including TC 2000.

Outdoor life is central. Families spend summer weekends at the reservoirs of Valle Grande and Los Reyunos, the Atuel's rapids have made the town a rafting and kayaking centre, and the hills around the dams draw walkers, climbers and anglers. The mountains near the city are also the source of condor agate, a brightly banded stone first described in 1993 and now prized by collectors and jewellers.

About 140,000 people lived in the city at the 2022 census, and about 215,000 in the department, making San Rafael the second-largest city in Mendoza Province. It lies about 236 km south of the provincial capital and has the feel of an independent regional centre, with its own airport, hospitals, a branch of the National University of Cuyo, and services for a wide farming hinterland.

The economy rests on irrigated agriculture — vineyards, fruit orchards and the packing and food-processing plants that serve them — together with hydroelectricity from the Atuel and Diamante dams, commerce and tourism. Water from the two rivers, carried through a network of canals, makes the oasis possible.

Daily life follows the Cuyo rhythm. Shops close for the afternoon siesta and reopen in the evening, when the plazas and avenues fill; summer weekends are spent at the reservoirs and riverbanks. The surrounding area lies in the same earthquake country as the rest of Cuyo, and building codes have been tightened over the years. Inflation and the cost of living weigh on household budgets as they do across Argentina.

Wine is the centre of the table. San Rafael, south of the city of Mendoza, has long been one of the province's important wine centres and gained its own DOC status in 1993; wineries around the city open for tastings.

The local speciality is meat roasted over embers: chivito, young goat, and costillares, racks of beef ribs, cooked slowly at the grill. Mendoza's large empanadas, made with olives and garlic, are everyday food, and the weekend asado is a family ritual here as across Argentina. Cuyo home cooking such as tomaticán, a dish of tomato and egg, and sopaipillas, rounds of fried dough, is found here too.

The orchards supply plums, peaches and nuts of high quality, and olive trees, planted even along the city's pavements, give Mendoza's olive oil. Mate is drunk at every hour, and in summer the ice-cream shops around the main square stay busy late into the evening.