Uruguay Is Small, Expensive, And Worth Your Shelf Space

Amanda Barnes MW presenting the Top 10 Uruguay selection to the London wine trade. Image: Amanda Barnes MW - South America Wine Guide. — Amanda Barnes MW mid flow, making the case for a country most buyers still file under other.

Most buyers have already decided what Uruguay is. It is the Tannat country, the one that makes the chewy red nobody asks for by name, filed somewhere behind Argentina and Chile in a mental drawer marked South America, look at it later. I walked into a room in London on 3 September carrying roughly that same drawer, and I have spent the week since rearranging it.

The South America Wine Guide by Amanda Barnes MW, the English language guide covering Uruguayan wine. Image: Amanda Barnes MW - South America Wine Guide. — The South America Wine Guide. Amanda Barnes MW wrote the book on the continent, and Uruguay gets a chapter of its own.

The occasion was Top 10 Uruguay, Amanda Barnes' annual pick of the country's best wines, poured for the trade at Paladar on London Road. Thirty wines in total: a Top 10, ten emerging producers, ten value picks. Amanda tasted around 200 wines to get there, then retasted the shortlist blind in Montevideo with INAVI, the national wine institute, before a single name went public. That is a rigorous enough process that the list deserves to be read as a buying document rather than a press release, which is exactly how I am going to treat it.

Key takeaways, for the fast scanners

Uruguay is not a volume play and never will be. Just under 6,000 hectares under vine and around 160 wineries means the whole country makes less wine than Concha y Toro does on its own. The commercial argument is scarcity and specificity, not price per pallet.
Brazil takes more than half the exports, and the UK is the European bridgehead. Brazil took 54% of bottled wine exports in 2024 and 57% in 2025. The United States sits second on 14% and the UK third on 4.2%, which makes Britain the biggest European destination and the reason this tasting happens in Southwark rather than Hamburg.
Albariño and Cabernet Franc are the two varieties to put on your radar. Tannat still holds 27% of the plantings and it is getting better, but the wines that made the room go quiet were saline Atlantic Albariño and Cabernet Franc with real perfume.
Cheap Uruguay does not exist, so stop looking for it. It is the most expensive country in South America to make wine in, and the Top 10 ran from roughly 20 to 110 pounds retail. Price your expectations there and the offer makes sense. Go hunting under 10 and you will come back empty and irritated.
The sustainability story is already built, not bolted on. Uruguay ran 98% of its 2025 electricity on renewables, and INAVI is paying growers to replant away from bulk varieties towards quality. You are not inventing a narrative here, you are repeating one.

The flat green Uruguayan countryside seen from a rock outcrop, low hills, scattered farmhouses and dirt tracks, with no mountains on the horizon. Image: Luciano Paris. — Uruguay from a rock outcrop. No Andes and no altitude, just low green hills, scattered farmhouses and dirt tracks. This is the country the Atlantic gets to run straight across.

The Atlantic runs this country, not the Andes

Almost everything the trade assumes about South American wine was learned on the other side of the continent. High altitude, dry heat, irrigation, the Andes doing the heavy lifting. None of it applies here. Uruguay is flat. The highest hill in the country, Cerro Catedral, is just over 500 metres, and it is not in a vineyard region anybody is arguing about. What shapes the wine is the Atlantic, and the humidity that comes with it.

Canelones, where the bulk of the industry sits, takes around 1,100 millimetres of rain a year and can run to 75% humidity. Mendoza gets around 200 millimetres and sits at 10%. That is not a difference of degree, it is a different job entirely. Amanda's line in the masterclass was that Uruguay has more in common with Galicia or Bordeaux than with anywhere else in the New World, and after three hours of tasting I would not dare argue with her. The acidity in these wines is real, not corrected. Most of these wines sit between 12.5 and 14%, but the alcohol is so well integrated you would never put them at the high end of that range. The two reds that scored highest with me came in at 11 and 12%, and nobody was apologising for that either.

Map of Uruguay's wine regions, running from the Uruguay River in the west to the Atlantic coast in the east, concentrated in the south around Montevideo and Canelones. Image: Uruguay.wine. — Where the vines actually are. Uruguay's wine regions run from the Uruguay River in the west to the Atlantic in the east, with the bulk of them packed into the south around Montevideo and Canelones.

The other thing worth knowing is that Uruguay has 99 mapped soil types, which sounds like a number invented for a brochure until you taste across the regions in one sitting. Maldonado gives you gneiss, granite and calcareous soils near the coast, and a salinity in the Albariño that runs through every single bottle. Rivera, up on the Brazilian border, gives you terra rossa and deep sand and a Tannat that is dark and concentrated but somehow smooth with it. Colonia gives you something else again. The regional differences are legible in the glass, which is not something you can say about every emerging wine country.

Terroir at a Glance

Climate

Maritime Atlantic, humid and temperate, closer to Bordeaux than to Mendoza

Precipitation

Around 1,000mm a year, up to 1,100mm in Canelones, with humidity to 75%

Altitude

A flat country. Cerro Catedral, the highest hill, is just over 500 metres

Soil

99 mapped soil types, from calcareous Maldonado to the terra rossa and deep sand of Rivera

Vineyard

Just under 6,000 hectares, supplying around 160 wineries

Grapes

Tannat 27% of plantings, then Ugni Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Albariño

A country this small has to sell scarcity, not scale

Handwritten tasting notes on the Top 10 Uruguay booklet, thirty numbered wines scored in pencil. — Thirty wines, numbered circles and a pencil. My own notes from the masterclass, somewhere around wine seven.

There were 19,000 hectares of vineyard in Uruguay in 1950. There are just about 5,700 now, and both the vineyard and winery counts have fallen by roughly a third in the last decade. A government vine pull scheme in 1996 took out a large chunk and economics has been quietly taking out the rest. In a bad vintage the country's production can halve, from around a million hectolitres to six hundred thousand.

None of that reads like good news, and for the people living it, it is not. But it tells you exactly what kind of commercial proposition you are looking at. You are not going to build a category on Uruguay. There is not enough wine and there is not going to be. What you can build is a position: a country nobody else on your list has, made by producers who cannot afford to make a wine that does not sell, in the most expensive place on the continent to grow grapes. Scarcity is the offer. Price it that way and it works. Price it against Chile and you will never get it off the ground.

The courtyard set for the walkaround, every bottle open at once.

The gallery room filling up. Uruguay does not get a room like this in London often.

Where the wine actually goes, and why the tasting was in London

On exports Brazil takes the lion's share and always has. INAVI's figures put it at 54% of bottled exports in 2024, rising to 57% in 2025. When somebody in the masterclass asked about export markets, Amanda's answer was blunt: Brazil, by far, is number one. It is next door, it drinks a great deal of wine, it makes very little of its own, and the trade route has been open for as long as anybody can remember.

I want to be precise about the rest of the ranking, because it gets repeated wrongly. On INAVI's 2024 export figures the United States is second at 14%, the United Kingdom third at 4.2%, with Mexico just behind on 3.8%. So, the UK is not Uruguay's second market by volume. What it is, is Uruguay's biggest European market and the one that matters most strategically, which is a different and frankly more interesting claim. A buyer in London is buying for a market that hunts niches for a living, that has the sommelier culture to explain an unfamiliar grape without flinching, and that other importers watch. Get listed here and Copenhagen and Amsterdam start returning calls. That is why the room was in Southwark on a Thursday morning and not somewhere with better weather.

The volume picture is worth reading properly too. Uruguay shipped 4,641,450 litres of bottled wine in 2024, up 15.71% on the year before, from 48 companies into 57 countries. That is still short of the 2021 peak of 5,386,758 litres. But the value went up 19%, to just over 19 million US dollars, at an average of 4.12 dollars a litre. Less liquid, more money. For a country with this cost base that is the only direction that works, and it tells you the wines being pushed abroad now are not the ones that were being pushed five years ago.

For scale, beef is of course still Uruguay's number one export and wine sits nowhere near the top of the list by value. Wine's job in the national economy was never to be big. It is to be valuable enough per bottle to keep vines in the ground. And with that the historic cultural heritage that goes with these vines.

The regulator is also a winemaker, and he was in the room

Diego Spinoglio, president of INAVI, nosing a white wine at the Top 10 Uruguay tasting in London. Image: Amanda Barnes MW - South America Wine Guide. — Diego Spinoglio, president of INAVI, nosing one of the whites at Amanda's masterclass. The man who writes the rules also makes wine number six on this list.

Diego Spinoglio is the president of INAVI. He is also the man who makes the Single Vineyard Cabernet Franc sitting at number six in this year's Top 10 (the places on the list mentioned are not the place they got in ranking, they are mentioned at random), and he was standing in Paladar on Thursday sitting right next to me. For a trade audience that is a more useful signal than any amount of generic country marketing. The person setting the direction has skin in exactly the same game as everybody he regulates.

The direction itself is the reconversion programme. INAVI, with government money behind it, is subsidising growers to pull out the high-yielding varieties that built the old domestic wine industry, Moscatel de Hamburgo and Ugni Blanc chief among them, and replant with varieties that can actually be exported. Ugni Blanc is still the second most planted variety in the country. That is the scale of what is being unwound, and it is being unwound deliberately, with money, over years, in a country of 3.4 million people that has roughly three and a half times more cows than humans. The scale is not symbolic: the Monforte reconversion plan covers close to 1,000 hectares, near enough a fifth of the national vineyard, over five years, which makes it the biggest replanting push Uruguay has run since the 1990s.

Viña Progreso Underground Skin Contact Viognier 2025, an amber Uruguayan orange wine with a graffiti style label. — Viña Progreso's Underground Skin Contact Viognier 2025. Amber in the glass, graffiti on the label, and not one thing about it that says supermarket shelf.

In April 2026 the government went further and declared wine part of Uruguay's living cultural heritage. It sounds ceremonial, and partly it is. But it also handed the industry cover to be adventurous. The orange wine in this year's Top 10, Viña Progreso's skin contact Viognier, is in there on purpose. A country that has just written wine into its cultural patrimony can afford to put something bretty and funky on the international list without anybody in Montevideo panicking. The Uruguayan Natural Wine Scene is quite the thing, according to Amanda there are a lot of Pet Nats being made and the Natural Wine Scene is becoming quite the thing here too. It will still grow over time, where the sparkling wine scene will be there to stay, not grow anymore because it is believed to be at its peak.

Sustainability here is infrastructure, not a sticker

Uruguay ran at 96% low-carbon electricity over the twelve months to June 2026: roughly 45% hydro, 33% wind and 14% biomass, with fossil fuels down at 4%. That is a national grid, not a winery initiative, which means every producer on this list runs a low-carbon operation whether they market it or not. And THAT is exactly the reason why I wanted to point it out. The sustainability scheme is past the target stage too: 238 vineyards covering 2,355 hectares are certified, which is close to 41% of national production.

An old vine at Últimas Parras in Colonia, Uruguay, still carrying fruit with its leaves turning at the end of the season. Image: Últimas Parras. — An old vine at Últimas Parras, still carrying fruit with the leaves already turning. Keeping a vine like this clean through an Atlantic summer is the whole argument about what sustainable actually means here.

The nuance a buyer needs before writing anything off is on organic certification. In a humid Atlantic climate, keeping vines clean means treating them, and the treatment organic certification permits is copper, in the form of Bordeaux mixture. Amanda made the argument plainly: pouring copper into your soil year after year in a place with this much rain is not obviously the greener choice, and producers would rather be measured on the whole operation than on a single input list. That is why a lot of the Uruguayan wine you look at will be certified sustainable rather than certified organic. It is a considered position, not a dodge, and it is worth understanding before it lands in a tender document and gets marked down.

Cerro del Toro, Cima Albariño 2025, Piriápolis. 95/100, rated 95 out of 100 points by Margot van Lieshout, Wine with Margot

Familia Deicas, Cru d'Exception Albariño 2024, Garzón. 96/100, rated 96 out of 100 points by Margot van Lieshout, Wine with Margot

The varieties that made the room go quiet

Albariño is the story. It has been the story for a few years now, but tasting eight of them in a row makes the case in a way that reading about it does not. There is a salinity that turns up in every single one, from the tight, high-acid Cerro del Toro Cima out of Piriápolis to the barrel-aged Deicas Cru d'Exception, which is being made in a frankly Burgundian idiom and is nowhere near ready. Amanda's note on that one was that she cannot wait to taste it in five years. She is right, and she is also describing a wine that needs a buyer patient enough to be willing to sit on it. There are only 95 hectares of Albariño planted in the entire country. If you want it, get in the queue early.

Riesling is the one nobody saw coming, and it earns its own paragraph here because my own scoresheet makes the argument for me. The Los Cerros de San Juan Lahusen out of Colonia, at 12.2%, was one of only four wines all day to take the top score I handed out: petrol, strict, textured and bodied, standing its ground with more grandeur than a German Riesling at anything like that price. The Bouza Viñedo Pan de Azúcar is grown on gneiss in Maldonado and takes the opposite route, ripe stonefruit and apricot with a smoky edge and the wood well judged underneath. The Becasina from La Pedrera in Rocha is pear and mineral with a saline finish and that umami note that kept turning up all afternoon. Three Rieslings, three regions, three readings of the grape, and not one of them apologetic. If you already sell Riesling and you think you know where the value sits, this is the country to look at next.

Cabernet Franc is the one I would put money on. I am a sucker for the grape and I will admit that up front, but the Spinoglio single vineyard is genuinely serious: dark concentrated fruit, real herbaceous lift, and tannins so well integrated they barely register as tannins. The Viña Progreso Underground version does something else entirely for a quarter of the price. There are 216 hectares of Cabernet Franc in the ground. It handles the humidity, it ripens, and it gives Uruguay a red that does not need a paragraph of explanation before somebody will try it.

Tannat is changing, and if the last one you tasted was more than five years ago your reference point is out of date. I assure you. The Pisano Arretxea Gran Reserva is cedar and smoke and leather over black fruit, concentrated to the point of absurdity, and smooth with it. The Cerro Chapeú Batoví T1 out of Rivera is dark and dense but the tannins are soft, and the winery has been doing DNA sequencing work on Tannat to understand what it actually has on its hands. Garzón's Balasto, a Tannat blend at 110 pounds, was the wine of the tasting for a good part of the room. You feel the sense of place more than anything else, and that is the whole argument for Uruguay in a single sentence.

Últimas Parras Folle Noire 2024, a low alcohol Uruguayan red from Colonia, rated 97 out of 100 points by Margot van Lieshout, Wine with Margot., rated 97 out of 100 points by Margot van Lieshout, Wine with Margot — **Últimas Parras Folle Noire 2024 · 97/100**Últimas Parras, Folle Noire 2024. One found parcel, 0.31 hectares in Colonia Valdense, lot number one. Eleven percent, and one of my favourite wines of the whole day.

Then there is the fringe, and this is where the by-the-glass opportunity sits. Folle Noire at 11%. Manseng Noir at 12%. Mencía in Durazno. Arinarnoa in Colonia. These are light, fresh, genuinely delicious reds at exactly the alcohol levels every wine list is currently hunting for, and almost nobody has them. The Últimas Parras Folle Noire was one of my absolute favourite wines of the day: cherry, herbal, umami, soft tannins, layered, likeable with a kick. If you are building a low-alcohol red section and you are bored of Gamay, this is your answer.

And one curiosity that earns its line: Bodega Santa Rosa makes a solera-aged Jerez Anticuario in demijohns at 16%, from Ugni Blanc, Pinot Blanc and Sémillon. Walnuts, dried apricots, figs, camomile, sugared lime zest. It has no business being as good as it is.

Margot van Lieshout at the bar at Paladar in London during the Top 10 Uruguay walkaround tasting. Image: Courtesy of Restaurant Paladar, London. — In front of the bar at Paladar during the overview tasting, pouring the ones again I could not stop thinking about.

What to do with this if you actually buy wine

Margot van Lieshout tasting the Uruguayan white wines at the Top 10 Uruguay walkaround in London. Image: Amanda Barnes MW - South America Wine Guide. — Me, somewhere in the whites, working out whether these would actually list in the Netherlands.

Nine of the thirty wines already have UK representation, which means you can taste before you commit to anything. Bouza is with Jeroboams, Familia Deicas with Enotria, Garzón with Liberty Wines, Cerro Chapeu and Sierra Oriental with Milestone Wines, Pisano with Boutinot, Viña Progreso with Ucopia, Marichal and Pablo Fallabrino with Vinos Latinos, and Nakkal with Condor Wines. For my UK readers, start there rather than with a cold enquiry to Montevideo.

Three positions worth taking:

Take the Albariño while it is still takeable. There are 95 hectares of it in the country. In five years the good ones will be allocated and you will be having a very different conversation about them.
Build the low-alcohol reds into a by-the-glass argument. Folle Noire, Manseng Noir and Mencía at 11 to 12.5% are the most sellable thing in this tasting and the least contested. Nobody else on your street has them.
Stop benchmarking Uruguay against Chile. It is not the same industry and it never will be. Benchmark it against a small European appellation with good stories and short supply, because commercially that is what it is.

The free Top 10 Uruguay 2026 report on the South America Wine Guide website. — The report itself, on Amanda's own site. One report, four Top 10s, and the whole thing free to download.

The full Top 10 Uruguay report is free to download. The trade in the room voted on the day, and the Wine of the Year is announced in Uruguay in December alongside the launch of The Uruguay Wine Guide. If Uruguay is not on your list yet, that is the deadline I would work back from.

95/100

Montevideo

Proof I did my homework: Bodega Bouza Viñedo Pan de Azúcar Riesling 2024 (96/100) · Cerro del Toro Cima Albariño 2025 (95/100) · Familia Deicas Cru d'Exception Albariño 2024 (96/100) · Viña Edén Méthode Champenoise Brut Nature (96/100) · Viña Progreso Underground Skin Contact Viognier 2025 (92/100) · Diego Spinoglio Single Vineyard Cabernet Franc 2024 (96/100) · Familia Deicas Extreme Vineyards Roca Madre Corte Único 2023 (94/100) · Bodega Garzón Balasto 2022 (97/100) · Bodega Cerro Chapeú Batoví Tannat T1 2021 (95/100) · Pisano Arretxea Gran Reserva 2020 (94/100) · Martín Viggiano La Martineta Albariño 2022 (95/100) · Becasina Riesling 2023 (96/100) · Bohemian by Fiore Marea Blanco 2025 (93/100) · Pettenuzzo & Giacobbe Primeros Racimos Sauvignon Blanc 2024 (95/100) · Cavani Premium Petit Manseng 2024 (96/100) · Últimas Parras Folle Noire 2024 (97/100) · Bodega Cerro Chapeú Folklore Manseng Noir 2025 (97/100) · Bodega Valdi Mencía 2025 (93/100) · Nakkal Moun Tinto 2025 (94/100) · Sierra Oriental Sangiovese Gran Reserva 2025 (95/100) · Bodega Marichal Pinot Noir Blanc de Noir and Chardonnay Rosé 2025 (93/100) · Bodega Colorado Chico Vinos Creativos Albariño 2024 (96/100) · Familia Deicas Atlántico Sur Albariño 2025 (95/100) · Bodegas Cerros de Oro Cristalino Marselan 2025 (95/100) · Finca Las Violetas Blend Blanco 2024 (95/100) · Pablo Fallabrino Estival 2025 (96/100) · Los Cerros de San Juan Lahusen Riesling 2024 (97/100) · Viña Progreso Underground Cabernet Franc 2024 (96/100) · Bodega Zubizarreta Colección Familiar Arinarnoa 2023 (95/100) · Bodega Santa Rosa Jerez Anticuario NV (95/100).

My Personal Tasting Notes

All thirty wines, in the order they were tasted, so not in order of any preference mentioned. Abv and, where a wine already has UK representation, the retail price as shown on the day. The scores are mine.

Top 10 Wines of Uruguay

Grown on gneiss. Ripe stonefruit and apricot on the nose with a smoky edge, warm and round with the wood well judged. Medium plus acid, fully integrated, and a real mouthfeel to it. Balanced, fruity, zesty, with proper body underneath.

2. Cerro del Toro Cima Albariño 2025 | Piriápolis, Maldonado | 13.3% | 45 pounds | 95 pnt

Calcareous, granite and volcanic soils on exposed sites. Still closed on the nose, but the minerality is there and the acid is very high. Juicy, with biscuit, toast and brioche at the back palate and mandarin through the middle. I want to know whether it sat on the lees, and I want to give it another six months in bottle.

3. Familia Deicas Cru d'Exception Albariño 2024 | Garzón, Maldonado | 13% | UK: Enotria, 60 pounds | 96 pnt

Barrel aged and it shows: smoke, vanilla and a full body over grapefruit zest and salinity, with a sandy grip. High acid, lean, straightforward for now and still very young. Burgundian in style. Amanda's note was that she cannot wait to taste it in five years, and neither can I.

Soft mousse, ripe fruit, medium bodied, with a savoury edge underneath. The palate lingers and it carries on well past the point where you expect it to stop.

5. Viña Progreso Underground Skin Contact Viognier 2025 | Progreso, Canelones | 11.5% | UK: Ucopia, 25 pounds | 92 pnt

Savoury and herbal, lemon verbena and sage, with peach underneath. Acetone and a touch of brett, definitely funky, and it has quite the structure. Not a wine that apologises for itself.

6. Diego Spinoglio Single Vineyard Cabernet Franc 2024 | Piriápolis, Maldonado | 13.8% | 20 pounds | 96 pnt

Spice and dark concentrated fruit, chocolate and coffee over blackberry and plum, with the herbaceous lift Cabernet Franc should have. Super ripe, soft tannins, so well integrated you stop noticing them. Made by the president of INAVI, which I did not know until he poured it for me.

Barley, malt and dried straw on the nose, then black fruit, blackberry, plums and cassis. Soft tannins, acidity well integrated, good length, and it has many layers. Grown high enough up that they net the vines against birds, boar and wild deer.

Aged in foudres and cement tulips. Earthy, lively, energetic, with concentrated black fruit and juicy plums, tobacco, black tea and the vanilla that comes out of the process rather than out of a barrel. Really juicy, genuinely exciting, and full of texture. You feel the sense of place here more than anything else.

9. Bodega Cerro Chapeú Batoví Tannat T1 2021 | Rivera | 13.8% | UK: Milestone Wines, around 50 pounds | 95 pnt

Terra rossa over deep sand, from a winery doing DNA sequencing work on Tannat. High tannins, dark and concentrated, but soft and smooth with it. Cassis, vanilla and liquorice, and the flavour keeps coming long after you have swallowed. Expressive fruit, very much of its region.

Cedar, smoke and leather over black fruit. So, so concentrated, and yet soft and smooth. Chocolate and coffee linger long after the glass is empty.

Top 10 Emerging Wines of Uruguay

11. Martín Viggiano La Martineta Albariño 2022 | Las Violetas, Canelones | 12% | 95 pnt

Strong texture, vibrant, with a herbal touch and a savoury umami edge. What it misses is the fruit.

12. Becasina Riesling 2023 | La Pedrera, Rocha | 12.5% | 96 pnt

Pear and mineral with a saline finish. Good texture and a distinct umami note running underneath.

13. Bohemian by Fiore Marea Blanco 2025 | Pueblo Edén, Maldonado | 12.5% | 60% Sauvignon Blanc, 40% Albariño | 93 pnt

High acid, lemon zest and minerality, with real tension and length to it. Exciting wine.

14. Pettenuzzo & Giacobbe Primeros Racimos Sauvignon Blanc 2024 | Pueblo Edén, Maldonado | 12% | 95 pnt

Funky and tart, grapefruit and pomelo and mandarin over a mineral base. Lean and exciting.

15. Cavani Premium Petit Manseng 2024 | Canelones | 14% | 96 pnt

Full ripe fruit with a bitterness and a bite to it. Port fruit character, good texture, good length.

16. Últimas Parras Folle Noire 2024 | Colonia | 11% | 97 pnt

Love it. The closest reference point is Pinot Noir: cherry, herbal, umami, red fruits, soft tannins, medium bodied and layered. Likeable with a kick, and the acid is spot on.

17. Bodega Cerro Chapeú Folklore Manseng Noir 2025 | Rivera | 12% | UK: Milestone Wines | 97 pnt

Compare it to Merlot. Plums, full, soft, friendly, round. It gives you everything and asks for nothing back.

18. Bodega Valdi Mencía 2025 | El Carmen, Durazno | 12.5% | 93 pnt

Eucalyptus and wet ferns, green and tangy and herbal, over blackcurrant, blackberry and cherry. Soft tannins, fleshy wine.

Less fleshy than the Valdi and more robust, with heavy tannins I could really put my teeth into. Blackberry, bramble, plum.

20. Sierra Oriental Sangiovese Gran Reserva 2025 | Paraje José Ignacio, Maldonado | 13% | UK: Milestone Wines | 95 pnt

Rounder, mineral and tangy, then it softens and drops away. Less bitty than I expected it to be. This is lovely.

Top 10 Value Wines of Uruguay

21. Bodega Marichal Pinot Noir Blanc de Noir and Chardonnay Rosé 2025 | Canelones | 12.5% | UK: Vinos Latinos | 93 pnt

Light on the nose with something floral behind it. Straight down the middle, and a bit boring.

22. Bodega Colorado Chico Vinos Creativos Albariño 2024 | Canelones | 12% | 96 pnt

Salinity, minerality and texture, and playful with it. Candied peach, vanilla cream and biscuit, good length, juicy fruit all the way through.

23. Familia Deicas Atlántico Sur Albariño 2025 | Juanicó, Canelones and Garzón | 13% | UK: Enotria | 95 pnt

Expressively fruity with high acid and real sapidity. Lime zest, grassy, saline and mineral, with body behind it.

24. Bodegas Cerros de Oro Cristalino Marselan 2025 | Rivera | 14.3% | 95 pnt

Red fruits, medium bodied, a little hollow in the mid palate but with umami and structure. Smooth, lean, light and refreshing. It has a lot going on without over-pronouncing any of it, and you can drink it all evening without getting bored. A wine that makes friends with everybody.

25. Finca Las Violetas Blend Blanco 2024 | Maldonado and Canelones | 13% | 48% Chardonnay, 30% Sauvignon Gris, 22% Albariño | 95 pnt

Slightly reductive on the nose, but the palate is exciting: tangy, zesty, vibrant, bright bodied, with complexity as it is. I love that it is a 2024.

Lovely and floral, and not frivolous at all: this is a serious wine. Golden in the glass, with some residual sugar giving it depth and ripeness. Apricots and cream.

27. Los Cerros de San Juan Lahusen Riesling 2024 | Colonia | 12.2% | 97 pnt

Petrol, strict, textured and bodied. It stands its ground with more grandeur than a German Riesling at this price, layered, and typical of where it comes from.

28. Viña Progreso Underground Cabernet Franc 2024 | Canelones | 13.5% | UK: Ucopia | 96 pnt

Umami, herbal and vegetal, and thoroughly enjoyable. Smooth, the balance is there, and there is fruit, lots of it, red and black. If you want something not too complex and not too ordinary, this is your pick. I am a sucker for Cabernet Franc.

29. Bodega Zubizarreta Colección Familiar Arinarnoa 2023 | Carmelo, Colonia | 13.5% | 95 pnt

Fleshy, juicy red fruit, tangy and energetic. If I had to compare it to something better known I would call it Mencía's cousin. Smooth tannins, fruity, with that umami note again.

30. Bodega Santa Rosa Jerez Anticuario NV | Montevideo | 16% | Ugni Blanc, Pinot Blanc, Sémillon | 95 pnt

Aged in demijohns. Walnuts and hazelnuts, with a sweetness that balances rather than cloys. Herbal, tea and camomile, dried apricots, figs and sugared lime zest. The length goes on and on.

Where to go

Where to find these wines, and where to go next

Every spot from this article, in one place.

Paladar4-5 London Road, St George's Circus, London SE1 6JZ. The Latin American restaurant and wine shop where the tasting was held, with an all South American list and a Bodega next door that sells the same bottles at retail. Closed Mondays, Tuesday 16:45 to 20:45, Wednesday to Friday 12:00 to 14:45 and 16:45 to 21:15, Saturday 12:00 to 21:45, Sunday 12:00 to 20:00

INAVI, Instituto Nacional de VitiviniculturaUruguay's national wine institute and the body behind the reconversion programme, at Ruta 48 esquina Camino Pattarino, Canelones. National statistics, the sustainable viticulture programme and the country's wine tourism route are all published here, and the export portal sits at uruguay.wine

South America Wine Guide, Amanda Barnes MWThe English language guide to the wines of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru, running since 2013 and the source of this tasting. The 528 page book is 35 pounds direct from the author at shop.southamericawineguide.com, and The Uruguay Wine Guide follows in December

Top 10 Uruguay 2026, the free reportAmanda Barnes, South American Wine Guide

Where to buy the following wines

Jeroboams | Bodega Bouza
Enotria & Coe | Familia Deicas, across all three tiers
Liberty Wines | Bodega Garzón
Condor Wines | Nakkal, and South America generally
Boutinot | Pisano
Milestone Wines | Bodega Cerro Chapeú, Sierra Oriental
Ucopia World Wines | Viña Progreso
Vinos Latinos | Bodega Marichal, Pablo Fallabrino

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Which Uruguayan wines should UK buyers be looking at in 2026?

The strongest commercial cases are Atlantic Albariño from Maldonado, Cabernet Franc, and the low-alcohol reds made from Folle Noire, Manseng Noir and Mencía at 11 to 12.5% abv. Tannat is improving quickly but is the hardest sell onto an unfamiliar list. Nine of the thirty wines in the 2026 Top 10 Uruguay selection already have UK importers, so most can be tasted here before you commit.

Why is Uruguayan wine more expensive than Chilean or Argentine wine?

Uruguay is the most expensive country in South America to produce wine in. Vineyards are small, yields are low in a humid Atlantic climate, and the total planted area is just under 6,000 hectares, less than a single large Chilean producer farms. There is no economy of scale to pass on, so Uruguay competes on specificity rather than price.

Where does Uruguay export its wine?

Brazil is by far the largest market, taking 54% of bottled wine exports in 2024 and 57% in 2025. The United States is second at 14% and the United Kingdom third at 4.2%, ahead of Mexico at 3.8%. Uruguay shipped 4.64 million litres of bottled wine in 2024 from 48 companies into 57 countries.

Is Uruguayan Albariño worth listing?

Yes, and supply is the reason to move early: there are only around 95 hectares of Albariño planted in Uruguay. The wines are marked by a consistent Atlantic salinity and high natural acidity, and the top examples from Maldonado are being made in a serious, age-worthy style rather than as easy-drinking whites.

What is the Top 10 Uruguay report?

It is an annual selection by wine writer Amanda Barnes, author of the South American Wine Guide. Around 200 wines are longlisted and then retasted blind in Montevideo with INAVI before thirty are published as a Top 10, ten emerging producers and ten value picks. The report is free at southamericawineguide.com/uruguay10, and the trade-voted Wine of the Year is announced in Uruguay in December.

Resources

AmericaEconomia, for INAVI's 2024 export figures and the market split (Brazil 54%, United States 14%, United Kingdom 4.2%, Mexico 3.8%), the 4,641,450 litres shipped, the 4.12 dollar average price and the 48 exporting companies into 57 countries: https://www.americaeconomia.com/en/node/290269
El Observador, for Brazil taking 57% of 2025 shipments and for Diego Spinoglio's presidency of INAVI: https://www.elobservador.com.uy/agro/intensa-promocion-vinos-uruguayos-el-mercado-que-esta-captando-mas-la-mitad-las-exportaciones-n6019498
The Drinks Business, on Uruguay declaring wine part of its living culture in April 2026: https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2026/04/uruguay-declares-wine-a-living-culture-in-landmark-policy-move/
Uruguay XXI, on Uruguay's national sustainable viticulture certification, now 238 vineyards and 2,355 hectares, close to 41% of national production: https://www.uruguayxxi.gub.uy/en/news/article/30-of-uruguayan-grapes-will-be-sustainable/
Low Carbon Power, for Uruguay's electricity mix over the twelve months to June 2026, 96% low-carbon at roughly 45% hydro, 33% wind, 14% biomass, with fossil fuels at 4%: https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Uruguay
Amanda Barnes, The South American Wine Guide, for the Uruguayan terroir, the rainfall and humidity comparison with Mendoza, the 1996 vine pull, the 19,000 hectares planted in 1950, Harriague and Vidiella, and the variety plantings by hectare: https://southamericawineguide.com
World Bank, for Uruguay's population of about 3.4 million against a national cattle herd of about 11.8 million head, which is roughly three and a half cows per person: https://data.worldbank.org/country/uruguay
Top 10 Uruguay 2026, the free report behind the London tasting, with all thirty wines and the trade vote for Wine of the Year: https://southamericawineguide.com/uruguay10
INAVI, Uruguay's national institute of viticulture, for plantings, the reconversion programme and the national statistics: https://www.inavi.com.uy

Written by

Margot van Lieshout DipWSET FWS RV

Wine marketeer, sales expert with over 20 years in the trade, public speaker and international wine judge. Thousands of wines scored from Steiermark to Ningxia, and a trade she knows from the inside out. Wine with Margot is where she helps wine brands tell the stories that sell them.

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The Atlantic runs this country, not the Andes

A country this small has to sell scarcity, not scale

Where the wine actually goes, and why the tasting was in London

The regulator is also a winemaker, and he was in the room

Sustainability here is infrastructure, not a sticker

The varieties that made the room go quiet

What to do with this if you actually buy wine

Bodega Bouza Viñedo Pan de Azúcar Riesling 2024

Cerro del Toro Cima Albariño 2025

Familia Deicas Cru d'Exception Albariño 2024

Viña Edén Méthode Champenoise Brut Nature

Viña Progreso Underground Skin Contact Viognier 2025

Diego Spinoglio Single Vineyard Cabernet Franc 2024

Familia Deicas Extreme Vineyards Roca Madre Corte Único 2023

Bodega Garzón Balasto 2022

Bodega Cerro Chapeú Batoví Tannat T1 2021

Pisano Arretxea Gran Reserva 2020

Martín Viggiano La Martineta Albariño 2022

Becasina Riesling 2023

Bohemian by Fiore Marea Blanco 2025

Pettenuzzo & Giacobbe Primeros Racimos Sauvignon Blanc 2024

Cavani Premium Petit Manseng 2024

Últimas Parras Folle Noire 2024

Bodega Cerro Chapeú Folklore Manseng Noir 2025

Bodega Valdi Mencía 2025

Nakkal Moun Tinto 2025

Sierra Oriental Sangiovese Gran Reserva 2025

Bodega Marichal Pinot Noir Blanc de Noir and Chardonnay Rosé 2025

Bodega Colorado Chico Vinos Creativos Albariño 2024

Familia Deicas Atlántico Sur Albariño 2025

Bodegas Cerros de Oro Cristalino Marselan 2025

Finca Las Violetas Blend Blanco 2024

Pablo Fallabrino Estival 2025

Los Cerros de San Juan Lahusen Riesling 2024

Viña Progreso Underground Cabernet Franc 2024

Bodega Zubizarreta Colección Familiar Arinarnoa 2023

Bodega Santa Rosa Jerez Anticuario NV

My Personal Tasting Notes

Top 10 Wines of Uruguay

Top 10 Emerging Wines of Uruguay

Top 10 Value Wines of Uruguay

Where to buy the following wines

Margot van Lieshout DipWSET FWS RV

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