The Uco Valley: Where Diverse Terroirs Work Their Magic

BY JOAQUÍN HIDALGO | SEPTEMBER 07, 2023

If you’re the kind of wine lover who is always on the lookout for the next surprise, then the Uco Valley is the place to be right now. In this report, you’ll learn why. If there’s a region in South America that encapsulates the spirit of winemaking precision and creativity, it’s this unusual, alluring valley.  

Gualtallary is the highest region in the Uco Valley, wrapped like a horseshoe around one mountain and towered over on all sides by more. In the photo, we see the southern face of the Plata Mountain in the background, behind the Bemberg vineyards, which are planted at 4,430 feet in an area known as Albo.

The Uco Valley is unusual because its 60-mile stretch only has one mountainous side: the western slopes where the Andes reach up into the sky, with some of the range’s peaks breaching 20,000 feet. However, to the east, except for a few gentle hills, the valley is hardly closed off. It is alluring because, in addition to the stunning landscape, the valley’s modern wines and vibrant winemaking movements are a true reflection of the creativity to be found in the local culture and terroir. Or, more accurately, terroirs - plural.  

An hour’s drive south of the city of Mendoza, the Uco Valley is the fastest-growing wine region in Argentina. Once a remote outpost with 8,000 hectares under vine back in 1990, today, vineyards span 29,000 hectares, a rate of expansion you won’t find anywhere else in the country. It’s a remarkable story of viticultural development that occurred especially fast between 2002 and 2022 when two-thirds of the current surface area was planted, and investment opened up new horizons for the region.   

To get an idea of the diversity here, you can try a simple exercise: compare two Malbecs from the Uco Valley. One might be ripe, indulgent and rich, while the other could be fresh and juicy, but with a leaner structure. Even within the same area and varietal profile, several different determining factors are always in play. This is a territory with the potential for great discoveries, but also one where it’s easy to lose your way and end up with a wine quite different from what you were hoping for. It can be difficult to get your bearings.     

Because producers are aware of this, they’ve worked hard on charting and classifying the Uco Valley. Today, every vineyard has its own soil charts and pits, while meteorological stations and studies have multiplied to satisfy the increasingly curious minds of winegrowers. These include maps, comparisons and experimentation with new, more specific styles. Terroir experts such as Pedro Parra, Lydia and Claude Bourguignon and Guillermo Corona have played a key role in the valley’s rise, and the fruit of their painstaking work is coming out in the glass.

I tasted about 650 wines from the Uco Valley for this article, almost all of them reds. In my earlier white report, I tasted another 400 valley whites. Working through those samples was a challenge as trends are still taking shape. That is what made those tastings even more interesting. In addition to a handful of world-class wines with exemplary expressions and concepts, many of the Uco Valley wines are beginning to settle into a range of stylistic and terroir-based categories.

If you’re looking for reds with a raw, primary character and good acidity, head to the higher vineyards in Gualtallary and San Pablo. If you’re hoping for more volume, texture and juicy energy, turn your eyes toward Paraje Altamira, Pampa El Cepillo, Los Chacayes and Vista Flores. Meanwhile, broader, more velvety reds with mellow tannins and an expansive flow are to be found in La Consulta. And that’s just a sample of the different characters the valley has to offer.

Three Terroirs in the Uco Valley

In-depth studies of the terroir have allowed for the identification and classification of several different regions within the valley: Paraje Altamira development (which I wrote about in 2019) was an excellent example. It was followed by San Pablo, Los Chacayes (which is currently undergoing further examination), Pampa El Cepillo and Cordón El Cepillo, La Consulta, El Peral and the most complex and promising of them all: Gualtallary.

These names didn’t really exist a decade ago. Not in the world of wine, at least not legally. Work differentiating heights, climates, soils and potential styles within the valley resulted in the emergence of officially sanctioned Geographic Indications. Since 2013 – when the first version of Paraje Altamira was approved – a dozen Geographic Indications have been declared in the Uco Valley in order to make it easier to know precisely where a wine comes from and what its resulting character is likely to be. And the labels bear them proudly.  

In this report, Paraje Altamira, Gualtallary and Los Chacayes account for about half of the bottles tasted. Let’s take a look at the latter region first.