Uruguay
Uruguayan wines may occasionally get overlooked in favor of their Chilean and Argentine counterparts, but take one sip of a velvety Tannat from the country’s Canelones region, and you’ll taste what the fuss is all about.
Uruguay’s wine culture owes its origins to French Basque and Italian immigrants. The former brought the Tannat grape to the country, which in France yielded powerful but tannic wines. Uruguay’s soils and maritime climate took the rough edges off the grape, and now lush, ripe Uruguayan Tannat wines stand in a league of their own.
Uruguay’s most well-known and largest wine region is Canelones, which encircles the capital city of Montevideo in the south. It just so happens that Canelones sits on a line at roughly 34 degrees south latitude, the same line that passes through world-class winegrowing regions such as Mendoza, Argentina, and Adelaide, Australia. Add the moderating influence of the Atlantic Ocean and heavy clay soils, and one has the recipe for an unforgettable style of Tannat.
In 2019 Uruguay exported a mere 38,000 cases of wine to the U.S., which amounts to a drop in an ocean. GVI Wines is proud to import the cases belonging to the venerable producer Marichal, who has been making wine in Canelones for eighty years.
The number of exported cases will most certainly increase in the coming years, now that Marichal’s 2018 Tannat has made Wine Spectator‘s Top 100 Wines of 2020 list, the only Uruguayan wine to make the list. It won’t be the last.
The Wineries
