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Honest Wines in Uruguay

Posted on March 2, 2007
Filed Under Food and Drink, Culture | 2 Comments

In contrast to Brazil where wine is normally associated with the elite, in Uruguay, it is consumed and enjoyed by all social classes. Coming from Brazil, I had always been fascinated by this aspect of the Uruguayan culture, but never had the opportunity to explore the inexpensive and the affordable wines.

During my last trip to Uruguay, I took the challenge and decided to investigate wines in the 1.50 to 3 dollar range. Being more of a wine enthusiast than a connoisseur made things somewhat easier for me. However, before descending into the nether world of inexpensive wines, I wanted a way to evaluate the wines I was investigating. So, over a bottle of wine, I developed the honest wine concept. According to this scale, a wine is honest when it costs less than what you would be willing to pay for it, when sober. Whether a given wine is “honest” or not is indeed highly subjective. And for it to make sense one needs to have drunk many, many wines of varying prices.

I am not sure if because of this perspective, but I experienced immense pleasure whenever I discovered a super-honest wine under two dollars. But it goes without saying that first I had to drink a boatload of cheap wine.

Strictly for research purposes, of course, I ordered the house wine with every meal at a restaurant or bar, and I usually remembered to ask the name of the wine being served. And in the days we ate in at the apart-hotel, I tried to buy a different wine every time. The few wines I found to be extra honest were re-sampled on different occasions to make sure it was not a fluke. As a result, I probably sampled around fifteen different wines. Since time was short, we limited ourselves to red wines. Although we were served rosé wine a couple of times by mistake. It turns out rosé wine is quite popular in Uruguay. Not my thing though.

Here are a few useful things I learned:

Wines in TetraPak packages are better than similarly priced wines in bottles.

The advertised price of wines in three liter glass bottles usually does not include the refundable deposit required for the bottle, around 40 pesos.

Some of the inexpensive wines are adulterated with grape sugar or with glycerol, a fairly harmless additive commonly used to round off cheap wine. These additives impart a sweet after-taste that takes some getting used to. We avoided those wines whenever possible.

If one grape varietal from a given company is honest, another may not.

One can purchase decent wine for less than a similarly sized beer.

In our tasting of inexpensive red wines the best and most honest were:

Rosés-brand Cabernet Sauvignon 1 liter TetraPak around 40 pesos

Santa Teresa Tannat 1 litter TetraPak around 45 pesos

Irurtia Cabernet Sauvignon, 3 liter plastic bottle around 120 pesos

Please note that these tastings were conducted in Jan 2007. A different batch of the same wines would likely result in different rankings. So your mileage may vary. The good news is that all wines that sell for more than 40 pesos per liter were pleasant and eminently drinkable with food. In the absence of other data, you could use this as a guideline.

I don’t wish to leave you with the impression that Uruguay has only mediocre wines. There are a few wineries making excellent wines, however at world prices. The better wines are in the 25 to 50 dollar range, like everywhere else.

Other posts in Culture

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• Tipping Custom in Uruguay
• Things I Find Puzzling About Uruguay
• Personal Account of a Bribery in Uruguay
• Telenovelas in Latin America
• Learning Spanish Through Uruguayan Radio
• Family Structure in Uruguay
• Beach Customs in Uruguay
• A Dispassionate View of Punta del Este
• Uruguayan Mate Custom

Other posts in Food and Drink

• Tipping Custom in Uruguay
• Uruguayan Mate Custom
• Types of Cheeses Made in Uruguay
• Overview of Uruguayan Dulce de Leche
• An Overview of the Uruguayan Beer Market
• Overview of the Jams and Jellies Available in Uruguay
• Review of Milk Types Available in Uruguay
• Comparison Between Regular Coffee and Café Glaseado
• Where to Buy the Best Uruguayan Empanadas
• Fresh Fruits Available in Uruguay

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