Uruguay Wine Tour
Uruguay is often overshadowed, certainly in wine-making terms, by its much larger neighbour Argentina. The home of Che Guevara produces much more wine than Uruguay and has very successfully marketed itself as the new home of Malbec (Cahors in France being its original home). But Uruguay is on the rise and is promoting its own flagship variety, Tannat. You can now find Uruguayan wine for sale in many countries around the world, and there is increasing recognition of the quality and consistency.
There are several wine regions in Uruguay that can be visited easily. If you are based in the lovely town of Colonia you have several options in the surrounding eponymous region plus that of Soriano, with its river gravel-type soils. Some important names can be found here, such as Familia Irurtia and Zubizarreta. The town of Colonia itself is a real treat to spend time in, wandering the cobbled streets and sipping a glass of local wines.
If you are sunning yourself in the resort town of Punta del Este you will have easy access to the rolling hills of the Maldonado wine region. Maldonado is home to several high-investment wineries that you may have heard of, such as Garzon and Eden.
But the wine region we primarily focus on for our clients is Canelones. The Canelones area is the most important one in terms of production volumes, responsible for around 70% of Uruguayan total production. The region is blessed with varied limestone and clay soils and a helpful climate, so a large number of wineries have chosen to plant their vines here. Within an hour’s drive of Montevideo, there are plenty of options for wine tourism and the fairly high density of wineries gives you plenty of choice with respect to quality wine experiences in a relatively small area.
We visited quite a few wineries on our investigation trip, Pizzorno is lovely for example, but three of them in particular warrant a special mention offering differing but complimentary experiences, ideal for including into a couple of days of visits from Montevideo. These three in particular we felt offered an extra warm welcome and superb experiences.
Bouza
This is a very comprehensive winery visit. Firstly, you get to see the vines that surround the winery and understand more about viticulture which, in our opinion, should be done at least once a day while on tour with us. A bottle of wine starts in the vineyard and decisions made there are essential to the final product. Then the visits to the production areas and barrel cellars show you infrastructure at a manageable scale so you can see all the moving parts and understand the process more easily. If a winery is extremely large and resembles a factory (which is obviously what it really is, a wine factory) clients can struggle to fully grasp the process elements and flow.
The eating options at Bouza are also a major bonus for guests. You can see from the two photographs above that there are two distinct options. The beautifully appointed restaurant (above left) offers a sophisticated lunch environment, with the possibility to choose between an a la carte, with wines by the glass or bottle, or a 5-course tasting menu paired with selected wines. And you also have the chance to wine taste and eat something in an atmospheric open-plan area which houses the tasting room, wine shop, tourism services and is also a car museum, as you can see above right. We highly recommend it, the staff were superb.
Castillo Viejo
Castillo Viejo offers quite a different type of winery visit when compared with the other two mentioned here. At a lot of the wineries we work with, usually smaller ones, we often have you meet the owners and winemakers. In larger places, it is rare to be able to spend time with the owners or winemakers but here in Castillo Viejo, the owner Ana is very accessible and extremely charming. We spent a lovely afternoon in the company of Ana and Alejandra and were shown around what could be considered a more “rustic” winery with less high-tech equipment on view than the others. While it may seem lower tech this winery has a serious producer, with a long history and produces a lot of wine with some very high-quality offerings in its portfolio.
Familia Deicas
Another superb option for our clients and this may have been the most comprehensive tasting we have ever experienced at a single winery. Wilson Torres (pictured with us below) has a mountain of experience in wine hospitality and does a superb job of managing a team that delivers top-class service. Much like Bouza you could spend all day at this winery, between wandering the vines, touring the cellars (which are spectacular as you can see below), eating in the restaurant and, of course, tasting a wide range of wines, you can spend hours here. And we did!
Uruguay has a lot to offer, and here we have only talked about a few wineries in the Canelones area, but you also have the other wine regions to include. You could easily spend a week here between wineries and vines plus some cultural and historic visits blended in. Uruguay is very easily combined with Argentina as the Buquebus ferry provides a quick link between Buenos Aires and Colonia / Montevideo. Get in touch if this gets your juices flowing and we can help you plan.
