Uruguay Annual Report: Setting a New Standard

The 176 Uruguayan wines we rated in our Hong Kong office this year might not comprise as comprehensive a list as can be squeezed out from such a diverse and growing wine-producing country, but the top bottles we rated add another chapter to the country’s intriguing tannat story, with enough exciting breakthrough albariños, including our top scorer, to thicken the plot.

Although albariño is still a niche variety in Uruguay, with just over 80 hectares of plantings, mostly in the Atlantic-influenced southern part of the country, producers like Santiago Deicas of Familia Deicas are helping set a new paradigm with wines like the Familia Deicas Albarińo Maldonado Cru d'Exception 2020. It comes from a granitic-soil vineyard that Deicas owns in Garzon, in the coastal province of Maldonado. The vineyard is a coveted source of some of Uruguay's finest and most minerally wines, all with high acidity and low pH levels.

What they produced from the granitic soils in 2020 was “super, super acid and with the lowest pH in a wine that I remember,” Deicas said during a Zoom interview (below). “It was less than sparkling.”

READ MORE URUGUAY 2022 REPORT: AS ZESTY ALBARIÑO RISES, TANNAT EMBRACES ITS FRESH SIDE

“The quality of grapes was amazing. What happened was we fermented in mainly new, Burgundy-style barrels in a spontaneous fermentation, and we were expecting something similar to what happens with great, great chardonnays," he said, explaining the logic of making something as vinous and credible as, let's say, Meursault, but tangier and with more salinity.

The wine reminds me of great, young Meursault, with a creamy oak punch before the mineral verve becomes explicit. Patience is required as the saline, austere minerality gradually comes to the fore and overtakes the creamy, hedonistic oak.

Deicas said albariño wines were in the midst of “a big, big revolution” in the country as winemakers experimented with what he called a “very flexible” variety.

The fact that this very first vintage of the Cru d’Exception is rated as the top Uruguayan wine this year and as one of the best albariños on JamesSuckling.com shows our strong belief in where Uruguay is headed with the variety.

Even though Uruguay is a red meat country – there are nearly as many cattle as there are people – and red wine is the natural and clear market leader, we would expect even more committed producers to jump onto the bandwagon of making fresh, mineral, and serious albariños that contend with those of Rias Baixas, in terms of both quality and diversity.

For his red wines, Deicas absorbs inspiration from coffeemaking to deliver fresh, drinkable tannats with a depth of flavors and round tannins. His Bizarra Tannat Sierra de Mahoma Cold Brew 2021 and Bizarra Tannat Sierra de Mahoma Espresso 2021 are two wines that left us in awe of this approach, showing how winemaking can shape the style of tannat, as the grapes for this vintage came from the same terroir.

The "cold brew" undergoes a long, cold fermentation that gently extracts flavors, delivering a crunchy, more fluid and herbal expression of tannat with plenty of red and blue fruit plus a hint of intriguing earthy funk and wildness. The "espresso,” meanwhile, involves a short-duration, high-temperature fermentation, with the solids being racked off in the middle of fermentation before the alcohol level goes up. The wine is juicy, rich, more concentrated and lusher than the cold brew, with round, fleshy mid-palate fruit and smooth, refined tannins – a reflection of the optimal ripeness the grapes were picked at.

RICHNESS FROM 2020

You can expect to find the same kind of richness from much of Uruguay’s 2020 vintage, as it was very dry overall, and producers are excited about the general quality of the wines.

Given the Atlantic maritime influence that holds sway over Uruguay, vintage variation can be enormous in the country. While 2023 is considered one of the driest vintages in history, 2021 and 2022 were almost completely the opposite. Both were cool and wet vintages, and 2022 was one of the rainiest and most challenging years even though albariños and tannats fared well.

"For 2021 and 2022, we had very dry springs, but the big difference was the weather during harvest,” Deicas said. “In 2021, the rain fell at the beginning of the harvest, which was good for albariño and tannat. In 2022 it was super rainy during the harvest, much more than in 2021. Again, grapes like albariño, tannat, and even pinot noir did well, but the rest was a big challenge.”

For Eduardo Boido of Bodega Bouza, the rain in 2022 was not a big issue for albariño, as the grape loved the water. "Of course, 2020 would be much rounder and voluminous over 2021 and 2022, and the wine tended to be more perfumed, too," he added. His albariño in 2022 was even fresher and more linear, although it was also lighter in flavors.

Although we expected to find ripeness, plushness, and hedonism in his 2020s, his Bouza Tannat Montevideo A6 Parcela Única 2020, a parcel that comes from Melilla, went a little too far with a stunning 16 percent alcohol.

"Over the last few years, there is a tendency that tannat picks up more alcohol, but remember it is a grape that has high acidity and enormous polyphenols that balance out this high level of ripeness and alcohol," Boido said.

The good thing is the fruit is still fresh, with no hint of over-ripeness despite the slightly warming alcohol at the finish.

The Bouza Tannat Canelones B3 Parcela Única 2020 is more vibrant. It comes from old, mostly calcareous clay parcel with water-retentive qualities that performed well in the dry vintage. The wine shows refinement, richness, complexity and, most important, freshness. The flagship blend Bouza Tannat Merlot Tempranillo Montevideo Monte Vide Eu 2020 is also rich, as well as lengthy and flavorful, underscored by high intensity and a solid structure.

"2020 was a long harvest since the weather was good,” Boido said. “It was a year of the pandemics, but fortunately, the harvest was not affected by Covid.”

Although Deicas compared the warm and welcoming 2020 vintage with 2018 and 2015 except without the severe heat peaks of the latter two years, Bodega Garzon winemaker German Bruzzone was even more enthusiastic about it.

“2020 was like a textbook vintage, one of the best vintages I've ever had, and I have had 23 vintages here,” he said. “I thought 2018 was already great, then 2020 was incredible. It was easier for us to make excellent wines in 2020.”

Bodega Garzon is one of the top producers in Uruguay. It owns more than half the vineyards in Maldonado, with 1,200 plots spread across 250 hectares of vines on gently rolling hills with various exposures. The winery is best known for its tannats and albariños, but this year it was one of their pinot noirs that impressed the most out of any of their wines.

The Bodega Garzón Pinot Noir Garzón Petit Clos Block #87 2020 is a pure and mineral expression full of crushed stone minerality, red berries and dried orange peel, giving an austere and deliciously savory aspect to a unique pinot born of poor, granitic soils amid a dry and healthy vintage.

For their tannats, Bodega Garzon’s owner, Alejandro Bulgeroni, and consultant, Alberto Antonini, have simplified the winemaking process, moving away from strong and powerful offerings and instead emphasizing structure, as driven by the granitic terroir of Bodega Garzon’s vineyards. It is part of their overall effort to make fresher, more drinkable and gastronomic wines, whether tannat, albariño, pinot noir or even cabernet franc.

There are also a few outstanding bottles at the top of our ratings list from serious producers like Pisano, Viña Progreso, Bodega Oceanica Jose Ignacio, and Los Cerros de San Juan, who are all making wines with more high-pitch balance, which means better drinkability, linearity and fluidity based on good intensity and complexity.

That said, the top wines we rated this year are undoubtedly enlightening, each in its own way. We hope this is just a preview of what comes next from the Uruguayan wine scene, and it is now time to look beyond the mighty tannat for even more excellence.

– Zekun Shuai, Senior Editor

Note: You can sort the wines below by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.