Bradt Travel Guides, Uruguay Ed. 2010

Una de las bodegas nuevas mas impresionantes del Uruguay

The grape that is, rightly or wrongly, always associated with Uruguay is Tannat, originally from the Madiran region of southwestern France, near the Pyrenees, and so known to the Basques who came to Uruguay in the nineteenth century and played a major role in starting its wine-making industry.

In 1870 one of them, Pascual Harriague, planted Tannat vines near Salto in the northwest of the country, and in 1876 Francisco Vidiela planted them in Colón, now in Montevideo’s northern suburbs. As early as 1877 Tannat (then called Harriague) was known as the ‘Uruguayan grape’, and in the late twentieth century it became associated with the country’s resurgent wine industry.

Wine-makers have used Tannat as Uruguay’s calling card even more than Chilean winemakers have used Carmene*re, and most visitors to Uruguay will want to try it. In fact it is quite hard to avoid as it’s used a lot, being very productive, ripening late and coping well with frost. It produces large tight bunches of smallish grapes which are easy to pick, an important consideration as harvesting in Uruguay is almost always done by hand (unusually, its leaves begin with three lobes and then develop two more). It produces a full-bodied deep red-black wine that’s fruity and a bit smokey.

However there is a problem. Tannat is known for its very high tannin levels (the name is no coincidence), due to the grape’s thick skin, and on its own Tannat can be just too much for many people. Historically this has happened when the summer has been wet or the grapes have not ripened fully, or when it’s been aged for too long in poor barrels; good management is vital. In France it has always been used mainly as a blending grape, and the rules of the Madiran appellation require Tannat to be blended with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Fer. It is also blended with Manseng and Courbu Noir, but blending Tannat with Merlot has been particularly successful in giving softer fruitier wines. Tannat’s high acidity allows it to be aged in oak barrels for up to twenty months to soften the tannins and bring out its flavour, and it benefits further from bottle aging (up to 6 years) and decanting before serving. French rosés made with Tannat are allowed to macerate or steep for only a short time to stop the wine becoming too tannic. The technique of micro-oxygenation was introduced in Madiran in 1990, with oxygen being bubbled through fermenting Tannat, to soften the wine’s tannins.

In Uruguay Tannat has been bred to be less acidic and tannic but with higher alcohol levels and more complex fruit tones. Some winemakers blend these modern clones with grapes from the ‘old vines’ descended from the original French cuttings; both types of Tannat are often blended with fruitier grapes such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. Some of these blends work immensely well; in addition fortified and distilled Tannats (like port or brandy) are now appearing and seem to be very successful. With luck, the days of people having to add ice or soda to their Tannat to make it drinkable are over. Indeed, the Financial Times’s wine writer Jancis Robinson chose a 2006 Uruguayan Tannat as one of her thirty choices for Christmas, perhaps because it goes so well with chocolate.