The guide to the best wineries in Argentina, including all the top wineries to visit in Mendoza, Salta, Rio Negro, Chubut, Patagonia and Buenos Aires.
In our ultimate guide to the wineries in Argentina you will find all the information you need to know related to wineries, wine tourism, winery restaurants and wine hotels in Argentina’s wine regions, including Mendoza, Salta and Patagonia.
Check out our ultimate Argentina wine guide and get to know everything about the terroir and the wine regions of Argentina.
Most of Argentina’s wine regions are located along the western edge of the country, in the foothills of the Andes mountains that form a natural frontier with Chile. The foothills offer the ideal natural landscape for vineyards to be able to thrive in the desert, as they slope gently downwards and are irrigated by the rivers carrying snowmelt from the Andes down to the arid plains below.
From Río Negro in the south to Salta and Jujuy in the far north, most of Argentina’s wine regions share this dry, warm and sunny mountain climate and gradually sloping alluvial soils. However in recent years we’ve seen a steady growth and diversification of Argentina’s wine regions, expanding further south into Patagonia as well as eastwards into the Pampa and Buenos Aires.
At the northernmost tip of Argentina, Jujuy is, in a word, extreme. Bordering southern Bolivia and the edge of Chile’s Atacama region, Jujuy has both jungle and desert salt flats but it is largely dominated by the high plateau of the altiplano which scales up to altitudes of over 5,000 metres.
The wine regions and vineyards of Jujuy are mainly in the narrow 80 km-long mountain valley and canyon of Quebrada de Humahuaca and the warmer valleys in the south known as the Valles Templados. Although there aren’t many vineyards in Jujuy (the region has just 42 hectares to date), Jujuy claims some of the highest-altitude vineyards in the world.
The Calchaquí Valleys is one of Argentina’s most extraordinary wine regions and it has, remarkably, been producing wine for hundreds of years, despite the challenges of its high altitude and remote nature.
Old vines can be found throughout this string of mountain valleys which runs north to south, spanning over 270 km and three of Argentina’s provinces: Salta, Tucumán and Catamarca. The Calchaquí Valleys may only represent 2% of the country’s vineyards, but it claims a disproportionate share of Argentina’s wine awards — and with good reason, I say. High-altitude viticulture can be hard work, but it certainly reaps the benefits of distinctive personality and I never fail to be impressed by the incredible value and quality of Calchaquí wines.
Read more in our Guide to the Calchaquí Valleys wine region
With over three-quarters of the province covered by mountains, Catamarca’s wine regions are unsurprisingly defined by their mountains and moderated by their altitude. Although Catamarca’s vineyard area is impressive in size, the wines are sadly less so. The province is a major producer of juice – so you won’t find as much wine coming out of Catamarca as you might expect – and also jug wine. Some of the better known wine regions of Catamarca are within the Calchaqui Valleys.
Bemberg Estate Wines is the luxury winery and portfolio of the Bemberg family in Argentina, focused on single terroir wines from around their best estates in Argentina. The winery is in Gualtallary in the Uco Valley.
Cheval des Andes is the result of a collaboration between two iconic wineries in France and in Argentina:
In 1998, Pierre Lurton, general manager at Cheval Blanc, was asked to find the best site for the winery. He studied the different terroirs of Las Compuertas with Roberta de la Mota and decided to combine Cheval Blanc’s experience with Malbec’s most pure expression. Cheval des Andes has inherited
Domaine Bousquet is one of the leading organic wine producers in Argentina, with French roots and a modern New World vision. The Bousquet family originally came from the city of Carcassonne, in the south of France, as the fourth generation of winemakers. In an effort to produce high-quality wines in the New World, the family focused on looking for the ideal place that would help continue their long-standing tradition and farm organically. Their mission took them to Mendoza in 1990, and specifically to the Gualtallary region of the Uco Valley – which at the time was relatively unknown.
In 1997, they acquired 110 ha of virgin land and started planting their vineyard and also built a state-of-the-art winery overlooking the vines and Andes mountains in the distance. The estate vineyard has an altitude of 1,200 m.a.s.l, benefiting from a constant cool breeze and a wide temperature range with the cooling mountain temperatures. 2002 was the year of Domaine Bousquet’s first vintage, and since then it has grown to become a leader in Argentina for organic wine managing over 1,200 hectares of vines in total.