You might expect South America to make a decent showing among the best wineries in the world. Would you expect them to blow away France, Italy and California though to claim five of the top ten spots, including #1?
That’s what happened last week in the annual World’s Best Vineyards Awards. See the full list here. The top spot went to Zuccardi in Valle de Uco, in Argentina’s Mendoza region, which has won best winery on this list for three years running. Part of its success is due to the youngest generation of the Zuccardi family and their innovative approach to wine-making:
…third generation Sebastián, who has pushed the vineyards further up into the Andes, his wines becoming ever-purer expressions of the soils that created them. In 2009, he established a research and development centre in order to analyse each step of the production process—from vineyard to winery—with painstaking precision, making the most of the wealth of soil types, microclimates and altitudes at his disposal.
Coming in at number 4 was Bodega Garzon in Uruguay. Famous for some of South America’s best wine grown in the estate’s granitic soils, which are some of the oldest in the world. LEED-certified and with infamous Argentine chef Francis Mallman at the culinary helm, this winery is known in particular for its Tannat wine as well as its meticulously cultivated 240 hectares separated into more than 1,000 unique plots.
For the sake of your future travels, it’s worth noting that there are some great Mendoza area winery hotels and Garzon has its own 5-room luxury hotel.
The Montes Winery in the Colchagua Valley of Chile follows Garzon at #5. In other words, 3 of the top 5 wineries in the world were from South America. Mallman must be thrilled since he has a restaurant at Montes as well. The winery is known for its Feng shui design and its delicious syrahs.
The Italian winery that comes in at #6 is followed by Catena Zapata at #7. This vineyard was founded around the turn-of-the-century by Italian immigrants and is now led by one of the world’s most decorated winemakers alive, Nicolas Catena.
The #8 spot was claimed by Vik Winery of Chile. There are actually two places you can sleep in after sampling the great wines from this spot: Vina Vik Hotel and Puro Vik.
Others from South America also showed up in this top-50 vineyards list, with Chile claiming more spots overall than France.
#17 – Clos Apalta, Colchagua Valley, Chile
#18 – Trapiche, Mendoza, Argentina
#24 – El Enemigo Wines, Mendoza, Argentina
#28 – Viña Santa Rita, Maipo Valley, Chile
#35 – Bodegas Colomé, Salta, Argentina
#41 – Viña Casas del Bosque
#42 – SuperUco, Mendoza, Argentina
#43 – Bodegas RE, Casablanca Valley, Chile
#45 – Viu Manent, Colchagua Valley, Chile
With 14 of the top 50 wineries in South America, it makes for quite the incentive to tour the region’s vineyards in order to visit some of the award winners. Our correspondents have certainly enjoyed their time at Garzon and Vik wineries when penning reviews for Luxury Latin America.
It would be fun to make pilgrimages to some of the other wineries on the top 50 list as they went beyond the usual suspects a bit to include ones in Georgia, Lebanon, and Australia.
Meanwhile, see a few wine tour stories we have posted from Argentina and Chile in the archives. Salut!
Article by Timothy
Timothy Scott is the founder and editor of Luxury Latin America and has been covering the region as a travel journalist since the mid-2000s. He has visited each country we cover multiple times and is based in a UNESCO World Heritage city in central Mexico, where he owns a home. See contact information here.
