On a Sunday in Canelones the smoke rises early: the asado, beef and sausages over slow embers, is the national rite, and the glass beside it is Tannat. The department north of Montevideo, around Las Piedras, Progreso and Juanicó, is Uruguay’s wine heartland. About 4,000 hectares of vines grow here (2020), close to two thirds of the country’s roughly 6,000 hectares, among low hills and market gardens half an hour from the capital. Uruguay is small: all its vineyards together are less than half of Switzerland’s roughly 14,500 hectares, and almost every bodega is a family business.
An Atlantic vineyard
Canelones lies at 34 to 35 degrees south, a shade south of Stellenbosch and of Mendoza, but nothing else is alike. Mendoza is a desert behind the Andes; Canelones is open to the Atlantic and the Río de la Plata, with around 1,000 to 1,200 millimetres of rain a year, humid summers and a steady sea breeze that keeps the vines ventilated. The soils are heavy, clay-rich and fertile, nothing like the gravel of Bordeaux’s Médoc. This is a maritime wine country, and it tastes like one: moderate alcohol, fresh acidity, and reds that rarely tip into jam.
In the glass
The grapes the region is known for, by sweetness, acidity, tannin and body.
| Grape | Sweetness | Acidity | Tannin | Body |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albariño | dry | medium(+) to high | white, no tannin | medium(−) to medium |
| Sauvignon Blanc | dry | medium(+) to high | white, no tannin | medium(−) to medium |
| Chardonnay | dry | medium to high | white, no tannin | medium(−) to full |
| Merlot | dry | medium(−) to medium | medium(−) to medium(+) | medium to full |
| Cabernet Franc | dry, also medium-dry | medium(+) to high | medium(−) to medium(+) | medium(−) to medium(+) |
Each grape’s typical range worldwide, not in this region alone, on the WSET tasting grid (Level 3, 2022): dry to luscious, low to high, light to full. The dot before each name shows the colour of a typical bottle. Outlined: a sweet style beside the dry wines.
The Basque and his vine
The grape arrived with a Basque. Pascual Harriague, born in 1819 in Hasparren in the French Basque Country, ran a meat-salting plant at Salto on the Uruguay River and in the 1870s planted Tannat there, the grape of Madiran. It took: in Uruguay it is also called Harriague, and it is the national grape, with about 1,600 hectares, roughly a quarter of the country’s vines; only France grows more Tannat. Tannat is one of the most tannic grapes in the world; in Madiran it gives dark, austere wines that need years. Uruguay’s versions are usually softer: riper fruit, blackberry and plum, tannins rounded by the maritime climate and by careful winemaking, from fresh young reds to barrel-aged reservas.
Sense of scale
4,000 ha Canelones has about 28 % of the Swiss vineyard.
One square is all of Switzerland: about 14,350 hectares of vines.
Beyond Tannat
Tannat is not alone. The Bouza family, of Galician roots, planted Albariño in the early 2000s, and the grape has become Uruguay’s rising white, salty and fresh in the Atlantic air; Merlot and Cabernet Franc go into blends with Tannat, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay make the crisp whites. The wineries are family firms, many founded by Italian and Spanish immigrants: Pizzorno since 1910, Pisano in Progreso, the old estate of Juanicó, today run by the Deicas family, and Bouza on the edge of Montevideo. The newest chapter is being written further east, in Maldonado on the Atlantic coast, where granite soils and the sea breeze have drawn new estates such as Garzón. At the table Tannat wants fat and protein: asado, grilled lamb, hard cheese, at 16 to 18 degrees and preferably decanted; Albariño at 8 to 10 with the fish and shellfish of the coast.