Another Way to Make Wine: A Guide to Mendoza’s Most Radical Wineries

At over 2,000 meters above sea level, deep in Quebrada del Telégrafo, Estancia Uspallata doesn’t just boast the highest vineyard in Mendoza—it redefines what it means to make wine in the region. What began as a seemingly improbable bet found in extreme altitude a way to produce wines that prioritize tension, freshness, and a raw expression of place over sheer power.

Here, everything is pushed to the limit: frost, wind, poor soils, and an environment that demands precision. That’s why the team works with micro-vinifications and minimal intervention, adapting each technique to specific plots in order to interpret the terroir with greater fidelity. The result is sharper wines, with aromatic and saline profiles that move away from the classic Mendoza style while clearly capturing the character of the mountains.

Note: For years, planting vines at this altitude was considered unviable. Estancia Uspallata not only made it possible but also opened the door to a new category: extreme-altitude wines in Argentina.

Where: Estación Uspallata s/n, Uspallata, Mendoza.

In an industry dominated by large-scale operations, Moor Barrio proposes the opposite: a “bonsai winery” where everything happens on a minimal, almost intimate scale. Founded by winemakers Cristian Moor and Teresita Barrio, the project began in a garage and is built on a clear idea: produce very little, but with a level of control and sensitivity that would be impossible in a traditional winery. The result is not just exclusivity, but a completely different way of understanding wine.

There’s no volume or automation here—just around a thousand bottles per year, handled at every stage by their creators, from vineyard selection to final labeling. This extreme scale allows for surgical precision across different terroirs in the Uco Valley, resulting in highly distinctive wines that have even gained recognition in international competitions against larger-scale labels.

Note: The concept of a “bonsai winery” didn’t exist in the industry until they created—and trademarked—it to define a philosophy where quality is measured not by volume, but by obsession with detail.

Where: Terrada 2702, Mayor Drummond, Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza.

More than a winery, Stella Crinita is the result of a search. Led by Joanna Foster and Ernesto Catena, the project emerged after years of working under organic and biodynamic standards in Vista Flores (Tunuyán), before taking a radical step: abandoning even those structures to move toward completely free winemaking. This gave rise to the concept of “honest wine,” where the wine is not corrected or directed, but simply accompanied.

Also of interest: A journey through the first biodynamic winery in the Uco Valley

Within this living ecosystem—where animals, plants, and microorganisms coexist in balance—each micro-vinification is unique and unrepeatable. There are no recipes or corrective interventions: native yeasts, minimal manipulation, and complete trust in the environment define wines that seek expression rather than technical perfection. More than labels, they are sensitive pieces that reflect a place, a moment, and a philosophy that understands wine as part of something much larger.

Note: Before Stella Crinita was created, the vineyard had already been certified organic and biodynamic for years. The real shift wasn’t technical, but conceptual: deciding to stop “making” wine and start letting it happen.

Where: RP92 s/n, Vista Flores, Tunuyán, Mendoza.

In a province where vineyards are traditionally associated with desert landscapes, Bodega Staphyle breaks the mold with a seemingly improbable project: growing grapes on the shores of the Potrerillos reservoir. The winery became a pioneer—and so far the only one—in producing wines next to a body of water that completely reshapes traditional winemaking conditions in Mendoza.

Dragón de Vino is the label tied to this terroir, made 100% from Malbec grapes and inspired by the journey to Potrerillos. The proximity to the lake creates a unique microclimate, with greater thermal regulation and conditions that favor more balanced ripening, preserving the grape’s freshness and acidity. Combined with altitude (between 1,400 and 2,000 meters above sea level) and low-fertility alluvial soils, the result is wines with tension, precision, and a profile distinct from classic regions.

Note: These vineyards are located within the grounds of the Gran Hotel Potrerillos, a building inaugurated in 1942 and declared a provincial heritage site. Today, visitors can enjoy the full experience by staying there and touring the lakeside vineyards.

Where: Potrerillos, Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza.

Far from vineyard routes and scheduled tastings, Casa Tano offers a different scene: making wine in the middle of the city, inside a historic house in Godoy Cruz, in Greater Mendoza. What started as an experiment among friends has become an urban winery that breaks with tradition, bringing production closer to the rhythm of the neighborhood and turning wine into a more intimate, almost domestic experience.

But it’s not just about location. Here, wine is experienced from the inside: visitors can take part in the process, create their own label, and understand each stage of winemaking in a relaxed setting where art, music, and gastronomy coexist. With small productions, indigenous yeasts, and minimal intervention, the project focuses on fresh, expressive, and approachable wines meant more for casual sharing than formal reverence.

Note: Everything takes place in a former Italian immigrant house—complete with pergolas—where historic machinery and the original spirit of the place are preserved, now reimagined as a meeting point for wine, culture, and everyday life.

Where: Perito Moreno 1221, Godoy Cruz, Mendoza.

Instead of refining what already exists, Foster Lorca chose to change the setting entirely: taking wine out of the cellar and into the depths of the Potrerillos reservoir. This gave rise to one of Mendoza’s most experimental projects, where bottles age not between stone walls, but more than 15 meters underwater, subjected to pressure, darkness, and constant temperature.

What began as a casual idea during a diving trip evolved into a full enological research line. Underwater aging accelerates the wine’s evolution and alters its profile: it preserves freshness while developing greater roundness, integration, and aromatic complexity. More than a gimmick, it’s a different way of understanding time in wine, where months underwater can equal years in a cellar.

Note: If you visit the winery, you’ll notice its façade featuring a mural titled “Voices of the Earth,” an imposing work inspired by geological layers and the surrounding natural landscape.

Where: Brandsen 1039, Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza.

Inspired by the Latin concept of cellarium—the underground spaces where Romans stored wine—Celalla Wines proposes a radical return to that origin: burying bottles underground as a natural aging method. Far from modern technology and cellars, the project revives an ancestral logic in which wine rests in direct contact with the soil, protected by stable conditions of temperature, humidity, and darkness.

Also of interest: Wineries in Mendoza near the city, where to enjoy wine experiences just minutes from downtown

This “natural cellar” is not just aesthetic or symbolic. Buried about one meter deep in vineyards in Luján de Cuyo, the wines evolve in an environment that minimizes external fluctuations and promotes slower, more balanced maturation. The project blends family tradition with an experimental outlook that seeks to reconnect wine with its most essential form of aging.

Note: Each year, they hold a ceremony called “In terra,” during which bottles from the previous harvest are unearthed and new ones are buried. In this way, wine aging becomes a ritual that combines tradition, celebration, and territory.

Where: Bodega Hacienda del Plata, San Martín 4871, Chacras de Coria, Mendoza.

Right in the kilometer zero of Mendoza City, Hualta Winery Hotel challenges one of the most ingrained ideas about wine: that it can only happen in the countryside. This project—the first in the Americas to integrate a working winery within an urban hotel—does more than relocate wine production to the city; it turns the entire building into an immersive experience where guests literally inhabit the winemaking process.

The Huentala Wines winery operates in the building’s underground levels, while the rest of the hotel mirrors the stages of wine, from fermentation to barrel aging and the final uncorking on its rooftop. More than a place to stay, it’s a sensory journey where luxury, design, and enology intertwine to redefine how wine is experienced beyond the vineyard.

Note: For the first time since Mendoza’s founding, wine is produced in the heart of the city—a milestone that transforms the hotel into a real winemaking stage.

Where: Primitivo de la Reta 1015, Mendoza City.

In an industry often driven by trends and repetition, Guardianes de la Naturaleza proposes the opposite: looking back to recover what was nearly lost. Led by Victoria Brond, the project focuses on old vineyards and forgotten grape varieties, prioritizing living ecosystems and producers who have sustained these lands for generations. The premise is clear: not to replace, but to rescue.

Within this philosophy comes El Mirlo, a Malbec that even challenges the very concept of vineyard training. Its grapes come from vines that grow freely, without physical or chemical constraints, in a biodynamic vineyard in Perdriel. This “wild” growth is not neglect, but a deliberate choice: allowing the vine to express itself without intervention to produce a more honest, less manipulated wine deeply tied to its environment.

Note: Instead of planting new vineyards, Guardianes deliberately seeks out those left outside the system—old, forgotten, or abandoned vines—and turns them into the heart of its wines. In short, it finds value in what the industry has left behind.

Where: The project doesn’t have a physical location open to the public, but its wines can be purchased via WhatsApp at +54 261 242 8537.