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I initially misidentified it as this place (below), but it didn't quite match. So it is now my submission.

1669574262970.png
 
We’re seeing the Argentine Saguaro, locally known as Cardón. Apparently a different species…
Hah, I was fooled too, I saw it and that's why I said Mexico to start with.

Presumably we must be somewhere up in NW Argentina, so let's say La Rioja?

Not least because it gives its name to every wine-drinkers favourite dinosaur, Riojasaurus :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riojasaurus
 
Hah, I was fooled too, I saw it and that's why I said Mexico to start with.

Presumably we must be somewhere up in NW Argentina, so let's say La Rioja?

Not least because it gives its name to every wine-drinkers favourite dinosaur, Riojasaurus :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riojasaurus
Not La Rioja, and a few hundred miles further north, but I loved learning about the Riojasaurus.

As a beer and wine drinker, the story that intrigues me from Argentina is the disputed hypothesis that lager yeast originated in Patagonia and somehow made it up to Germany in the 1500s.
 
Not La Rioja, and a few hundred miles further north,
Let's say Salta then?
As a beer and wine drinker, the story that intrigues me from Argentina is the disputed hypothesis that lager yeast originated in Patagonia and somehow made it up to Germany in the 1500s.
It sounds like you got the early version of the story, before they found S. eubayanus, one of the parents that hybridised to make lager yeast, had got everywhere in the world, they just didn't know what to look for previously. Yes the centre of diversity (cautious geneticist-speak for "homeland") of S. eubayanus is in Patagonia, but it's been found all over the place, from North America to Tibet to New Zealand. But not Europe AFAIK. And in fact the ones that are closest to the lager ones are found in Tibet.

Having read some of the papers what seems to have happened is that the proto-eubayanus came from China like all other yeasts 1+ million years ago and quietly adapted to living in tree bark in Patagonia, which among other things meant adapting to cold temperatures. Then probably during one of the Ice Ages between 50-10,000 years ago, it made it back across the equator, maybe floating on a "raft" of vegetation. Then once it had got to Tibet some thousands of years ago - who knows how it made its way to Europe? Maybe in a barrel of sake or Shaoxing wine, maybe on some dried fruit, maybe it hitched a lift in the wood of a cart. But since the other parent seems to be a kolsch-like yeast, it seems that the hybridisation may well have happened in Europe.
 
Close, but you still fell short. This is a place I visited on my Che Guevara-wannabe trip in the early 90s. Where I likely contracted hepatitis.

I’ve read up a little on the alternative genesis stories of lager yeast and it doesn’t seem we got to the bottom of this just yet. Lots of interesting hypotheses that don’t seem to fully add up or require considerable leaps of faith. Thanks for the more informed update.

Beer in Argentina used to be pretty crap, as far as I can remember. But we didn’t care or know better back then…
 
reminds me of a episode of DS9 when the GMO kids came up with a way to clip the wings off an angel....
 

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