You might expect South America to make a decent showing among the best wineries in the world. Would you expect them to blow away France, Italy and California though to claim six of the top ten spots, including #1?
That’s what happened this year in the annual World’s Best Vineyards Awards. See the full list here. The top spot went to Zuccardi in Valle de Uco, in Argentina’s Mendoza region, which has won best winery on this list for five years running as of 2023. Part of its success is due to the youngest generation of the Zuccardi family and their innovative approach to wine-making:
…third generation Sebastián, who has pushed the vineyards further up into the Andes, his wines becoming ever-purer expressions of the soils that created them. In 2009, he established a research and development centre in order to analyse each step of the production process—from vineyard to winery—with painstaking precision, making the most of the wealth of soil types, microclimates and altitudes at his disposal.
Coming in at number 6 was Bodega Garzon in Uruguay. Famous for some of South America’s best wine grown in the estate’s granitic soils, which are some of the oldest in the world. LEED-certified and with infamous Argentine chef Francis Mallman at the culinary helm, this winery is known in particular for its Tannat wine as well as its meticulously cultivated 240 hectares separated into more than 1,000 unique plots.
The #3 spot was claimed by Vik Winery of Chile, pictured at the top of this wineries article. There are actually two places you can sleep in after sampling the great wines from this spot: Vina Vik Hotel and Puro Vik.
For the sake of your future travels, it’s worth noting that there are some great Mendoza area winery hotels and Garzon has its own 5-room luxury hotel.
The Montes Winery in the Colchagua Valley of Chile showed up on the top-10 once again at #7. Mallman must be thrilled since he has a restaurant at Montes as well. The winery is known for its Feng shui design and its delicious syrahs.
Then #9 was Bodegas Salentein in the Uco Valley of Argentina, at #10 was El Enimigo of Mendoza, Argentina. So there you have it, 6 of the top 10 wineries in the world were from South America in this year’s World’s Best Vineyards awards.
Plenty of others from South America also showed up in this top-50 vineyards list:
#13 – Finca Victoria – Durigutti Family Winemakers, Mendoza, Argentina
#24 – Bodegas Colomé, Salta, Argentina
#25 – Viñedos de Alcohuaz, Elqui Valley, Chile
#30 – Bodega Bouza, Montevideo, Uruguay
#37 – Viña Casas del Bosque
#39 – Clos Apalta, Colchagua Valley, Chile
#43 – Viu Manent, Colchagua Valley, Chile
#48 – Bodega Diamandes, Mendoza, Argentina
#50 – Viña Errazuíz, Aconcagua Valley, Chile
With 15 of the top 50 wineries in South America, it makes for quite the incentive to tour the region’s vineyards in order to visit some of the award winners. Our correspondents have certainly enjoyed their time at Garzon and Vik wineries when penning reviews for Luxury Latin America.
We do have to point out, in all fairness, that France reclaimed its title this year and vaulted back ahead of Chile to have the highest number of wineries on the list. Still, you’ve got plenty to choose in both countries, as well as in Argentina and Uruguay.
It would be fun to make pilgrimages to some of the other wineries on the top 50 list as they went beyond the usual suspects a bit to include ones in Georgia, Lebanon, and Australia. This time there are even entries from Japan and Hungary, and of course from the United States. A German one made the top 10 and an Austrian one showed up at #14.
Meanwhile, see a few wine tour stories we have posted from Argentina and Chile in the archives. Salut!
This article on the best wineries in the world was updated in 2023.
Great sharing! Want to visit those wineries soon.