Also by Jeremy Young:The Italy Wine ProjectThe Humidor ProjectThe Argentina Wine Project
The Argentina Wine Project

Regions / Mendoza

IG

Valle de Uco IG

The Valle de Uco is the part of Mendoza closest to the mountains, and most of what makes it interesting follows from that. The INV counts 29,934 hectares of vines in 2025 across the three departments, about a fifth of Mendoza's vineyard. The area grew by 259% between 1990 and 2021, and it keeps growing as growers plant higher up the slopes.

The soils are alluvial, washed down from the Andes over millions of years. The INV describes the upper, steeper ground as stony and low in fertility, with rounded stones mixed into coarse sand and some silt. Winters are hard and summers are warm. Frost, hail and the zonda wind cause losses fairly often.

The finer detail comes from the IGs inside it. Tupungato, Tunuyán and San Carlos are each IGs of their own, and smaller ones sit within them: El Peral, Vista Flores, Los Chacayes, San Pablo, Paraje Altamira and others. A label that says only Valle de Uco can mean fruit from anywhere in the valley, so when I open one I'm checking how much altitude and freshness shows up in the glass. The more specific the label, the more I expect it to tell me about the place.

Reviews

Inside Valle de Uco