Uruguay’s wine sector is comparable in size with that of New Zealand’s. However, at 32 L per capita annual consumption, double that of the Kiwis, Uruguayan wine producers feel less pressure to export than New Zealand, despite a population that’s 30% lower.
At a glance
A relatively flat country sandwiched between Brazil, Argentina and the Atlantic Ocean, Uruguay’s wine history dates back to the early 17th century. The first commercial venture, however, was initiated by Basque Frenchman Pascal Harriague in the 1870s who planted, among other grapes, Tannat, Folle Noire and Gamay Noir. Of all the vines Harriague chose, it was Tannat that took hold and where most of the best wines of this grape are made today, a situation that’s not unlike that of Malbec in Argentina and France. Thirty per cent of Uruguay’s nearly 10,0000 ha of vineyards are comprised of this grape, making it second in worldwide production only to the grape’s native France.
‘Harriague’ soon became the name given to Tannat by his newfound countrymen, a moniker used occasionally to this day.
Situated at a lower altitude, though located at the same latitude as Argentina’s Mendoza, Uruguay’s warm maritime climate helps ameliorate the sun’s intensity, allowing greater hang time due to the moderating influence of the Atlantic Ocean. The Tannat grape is well adapted due to its affiliation with humidity over aridity. Most vineyards and wineries are located in the Canelones district, 30 to 60 minutes by car northwest of the capital city of Montevideo. A handful are scattered in other areas, such as along the Rio Plata in Colonia del Sacramento, and near the booming resort city of Punta del Este. According to the Environmental Sustainability Index developed by Yale and Columbia Universities, Uruguay is one of the purest vineyard environments in the world; only Finland and Norway rank higher.
Uruguay’s entry into the mainstream of world exports began in 2002, when its former top trading partner, Argentina, had one of its numerous economic crises. They were able to reorient internationally because in the late 1980s the Uruguayan government had assisted growers to convert their vineyards to better material, with the intention of transitioning from bulk to fine wines. Juan Andrés Marichal of Marichal e Hijo, head of the growers’ association and an Argentina-trained businessman, recalls the days of selling off his grapes and wines for bulk dissemination, saying, “I discovered a very nice world of wine lovers when we shifted from our bulk sales to that of bottled fine wines.” This is despite packaging costs in this newly prosperous country being 30% to 80% higher than in neighboring Argentina, placing greater pressure upon the final costs of packaged wines.
Today, over 300 wineries span this small country, of which 21 work together to develop exports through the government-supported Wines of Uruguay (WoU). These 21 members export 3m L of the country’s total of 90m L produced, or 3.3% of total production. The FOB export figures for 2014, $6.14m, are projected to show an increase of 35% over 2013.
Viticultural freedom
Uruguay has neither an organised appellation, a system of vineyard or winery rankings, nor even a nationally-recognised wine magazine or critic, a situation allowing ease of production and marketing without the scrutiny common to most other wine-producing countries. Its major growing areas include: Maldonado, Colonia, the backcountry Rivera shared with Brazil, and the broad Montevideo/Canelones/San José area which traditionally dominates production.
According to noted vintner and arguably the country’s greatest marketer, Daniel Pisano of Pisano Wines, the need for an appellation system will probably be tackled within a decade. “On the one hand, it’s good to be free to produce any grape we want and to experiment and with any terroir,” he says. “We’re less concerned about making statements about a region than that of our country.”
Pisano points out that the Rivera region, which has a sizable chunk of vineyards located in an area straddling the Brazilian border, is most in need of a more defined status. But others don’t see it as a priority. “Our basic geographical indications for the moment is what we can do well; we’ve enough problems organising a fair or bringing people over from abroad,” says Javier Carrau. In 1979, Carrau’s family company was the first in Uruguay to bottle a Tannat as a labeled varietal. In the 1970s Carrau was one of South America’s first wineries to import virus-free vines from both California and France. Carrau and his siblings are unusual in that with the help of an agent, it acts as its own US importer, “a sure advantage for us,” he says.
The question of how to manage the development of the industry isn’t limited to defining areas.
Fabiana Bracco has traveled the world promoting her native country’s wines for 14 years, first for Pisano and now for the Finca Narbona. “A lot of the work we began doing slowly 20 years ago, travelling 180 days a year,” she says.
“But other governments spend more money than ours to invest in developing their business sectors. With the limited resources we have in Uruguay we’ve been very clever in how we use it.” Bracco, who was the country’s 1991 ‘wine queen’, said that back then the wines were more rustic and not as rounded as they are today, that the tannins weren’t correct, and barrel usage poorly monitored. “Since then we’ve learned how to better work with our vineyards and our barrels.” Marta Méndez Parodi, the ‘elder stateswoman’ and former president of Wines of Uruguay, who works with a locally unprecedented 27 varieties, and who exports her Giménez Méndez winery’s products to 22 countries, agrees. “We haven’t the resources we need to make as much of an impact as we’d like. We cannot do an explosive, aggressive campaign—international promotion requires a lot of money, and we can’t do a promotion from a recipe.”
Growing professionalism
Until quite recently, all of Uruguay’s wineries were family-run, with many expressing a charm found only in up-and-coming areas unaccustomed to attention and fame. Now, Brazilian investors have acquired two existing operations, and Maldonado’s Garzón and Colonia’s Finca Narbona have been established as commercial enterprises. Garzón is part of the Agroland SA corporation, owned by billionaire Alejandro Bulgheroni, proprietor of Argentina’s Argento, California’s Renwood, and Chianti’s Dievole with those and others distributed in the US and UK through his Blends companies. Consulting winemaker Alberto Antonini helped in planning Garzón’s state of the art winery in April 2007, saying he liked its well-drained ‘Balastro’ soils and Atlantic Ocean-influenced climate in which he saw “many similarities with Galicia and Bordeaux. We finished planting the first 150 ha at the end of 2010, with plans to add another 90 ha by end 2016.” The Tuscan employs close 2x1 vine spacing, a VSP trellising system, and Guyot pruning to “optimise balance and potential longevity of the vines”.
While Antonini’s found a passion in eastern Uruguay, westerly Finca Narbona’s recently taken on the services of Michel Rolland. The Deicas family, whose Juanicó winery is based in the central growing area, has taken Californian Paul Hobbs on board for a new project; owners of the winery since 1979, the Deicas family also have extensive investments in other businesses, such as the country’s most successful bus company, and its leading alcohol beverage distributorship that includes import leader Concha y Toro and Grant’s whisky concessions. Fernando Deicas oversees those businesses, as well as his family’s 310 ha of planted vine, proudly claiming to being the first in Uruguay to achieve ISO 9001 certification.
An equally far-flung entrant into this country’s wine scene is oil executive Blake Heinemann of Philadelphia, who started Artesana Winery in 2007 with the ongoing assistance of his Californian niece Leslie Fellows. Located in Canelones’s Las Brujas, the Americans, with on-site winemakers Analia Lazaneo and Valentina Gatti, are Uruguay’s only producer of Zinfandel. The 11-ha estate also produces the ubiquitous Tannat, along with some Merlot for blending. Ironically, Artesana’s Zinfandel is exceedingly popular in-country, so none finds it way to the grape’s native land. By comparison, 50 km east of Montevideo along the road to Punta del Este is Viñedos de los Vientos, unique in that its owner, Pablo Fallabrino – who inherited his land from his wine merchant grandfather – exports a whopping 70% of his annual 60,000 bottles to one export market: the US.
International outlook
Daniel Pisano of Pisano Wines has kept export prices in check since 2008 “because of the economic crisis the northern hemisphere has suffered from.” Pisano is sold in the US solely at the Total Wine chain, replicating this somewhat in England where it sells directly to Marks & Spencer.
Of Uruguay’s top 10 export markets, Russia, at 1.5m L, outsells its runner-up Brazil by nearly 600,000 L, although the value of shipments is $2.4m less than exports to Brazil. In terms of value, the top country at $5.85 per litre is Belgium, with the English-speaking markets of the US, Canada and the UK coming next. Juan Andrés Marichal of Marichal e Hijo, head of the growers’ association, says the difference between the US and UK markets is that “though the UK is growing for us, US consumers are a bit more open-minded than those in the UK”.
Of the international trade exhibitions ProWein, Brazil’s ExpoVinis, and Vinexpo Bordeaux have held the most sway for Wines of Uruguay, with the occasional ventures into China and the London Wine Fair.
Third-generation winegrower Carlos Pizzorno, with gastroenterologist wife Ana Rodriguez, oversees the 1910 Pizzorno winery, along with the 25 ha of vines surrounding it. The UK was their first export market, having first sold there in 2000 following a stop at the London Wine Fair. “It’s difficult to build business relationships, and easy to lose them,” he says.
Wines of Uruguay launched a ‘Tannat Tasting Tour’ in 2013, beginning in the US. The tour took in Washington DC; Austin Texas; and San Francisco; with 2014’s tour extending to Chicago; Boston; and Ft. Lauderdale. The concept was successful enough that it was launched in Brazil in August 2014, along with ‘Tannat & Women’ and ‘Tannat Health’ activities.
The changes of the past few years and the entry of bigger players into Uruguay have helped raise the prospects and profile of the wine industry. Yet there are challenges ahead: First is the lack of promotional money. A relative paucity of available labour and its associated costs are also a looming problem for Uruguay’s wine producers. “We cannot compete with Chile or Argentina; they’re on a similar volume position as Australia or California,” says Daniel Pisano. “We need to find consumers who are interested in wines not readily available.”
Still, the timing is right. In 2013, The Economist magazine named Uruguay ‘Country of the Year’, while in September 2014, The New York Times ran a wine-and-travel feature on Uruguay, saying: “If Argentina is the continent’s wine Goliath, Uruguay may be on its way to being its David — a formidable opponent. And a huge part of its appeal and success may be that it’s small and accessible.”
