Bodega Urqo: Beyond the Medals. BY ANDRE’ WAYNE REID

A medal can get a wine onto your radar. It cannot tell you what makes the winery worth remembering.

That distinction matters in Mendoza. International recognition has become almost routine here. Argentina continues to collect medals, scores and global attention, while the Valle de Uco has developed into one of South America's most closely watched wine regions. So when five recent international results brought Bodega Urqo to my attention, I was interested in the wines, certainly. I wanted to know what sat behind the results. What does a relatively young producer look like when it is still establishing its identity in a region already crowded with famous names?

Urqo's answer begins with the Urquía family and three vineyard sites across the Valle de Uco: Finca Algarrobos and Finca Durmientes in Tupungato, and Finca Mirador in Los Chacayes. Altitude, soil and site provide the geographical framework. Malbec is the familiar starting point. Chardonnay opens another door. That combination gives the winery a story worth following.

Argentina's international wine reputation has considerable depth behind it. At the annual Decanter World Wine Awards, the country has consistently collected multiple platinum, gold, silver and bronze medals across all categories. For a producer operating in Mendoza today, producing a good bottle is only part of the challenge. The wines also have to give consumers a reason to remember the name behind them. Urqo is still relatively young in that process. The Urquía family has been developing its wine operation in the Valle de Uco for more than 15 years, building vineyards and winery infrastructure before launching its own Urqo wines in 2022. 

There is serious infrastructure behind the labels. The winery has substantial production capacity, with temperature-controlled stainless-steel tanks, a barrel programme and its own laboratory. The more revealing part, though, may be what comes from the vineyards. Urqo's vineyards give the project a useful geographical spread. Finca Algarrobos sits in Tupungato at approximately 1,130 metres, with sandy-loam and calcareous soils. Finca Durmientes, also in Tupungato, sits at around 1,030 metres and includes Malbec and Chardonnay among its plantings. The vineyard is organically certified. Further south, Finca Mirador lies in Los Chacayes at approximately 1,150 metres, with alluvial soils containing sand and rounded stones.

These details can sound technical on paper. In the glass, they become part of the broader Mendoza vocabulary: altitude, freshness, structure and the character that comes from different sites within the same valley. This is where Urqo starts to become more than a medal tally for me. Malbec remains the obvious way into an Argentine wine conversation, and Urqo has received useful international recognition for several expressions.

Palo Santo Malbec 2022 received a Silver medal and 92 points at the 2025 Decanter World Wine Awards. That is a result worth noticing. The Palo Santo name takes its inspiration from palo santo, the aromatic wood associated with ritual and Latin American cultural traditions. Urqo describes the wine as a ritual experience, an idea that fits naturally with the way wine operates socially across Latin America.

That social dimension feels familiar to me from the Caribbean.

I grew up understanding hospitality through the table. Food arrives, people stay, conversation stretches, and another bottle can become part of the evening without anyone having planned it that way. Argentina gave me a different wine vocabulary, but the instinct to make the table the centre of the experience feels remarkably familiar.

Los Durmientes Malbec, another expression of the same grape, earned a 2025 DWWA Bronze medal with 86 points. Urqo presents Los Durmientes as a wine for spontaneous occasions, tapas, conversation and evenings that continue beyond the original plan.

Chardonnay del Mirador received Bronze and 88 points at the 2025 Decanter World Wine Awards. In 2026, it earned another Bronze medal at the International Wine and Spirits Challenge, as El Mirador Chardonnay. It's a white wine made from 100 per cent Chardonnay in Los Chacayes, with eight months of oak ageing. It gives the wine a different route into the Valle de Uco.

Malbec can introduce a visitor to Argentina's wine identity, but it is Chardonnay that encourages a closer look at the region itself. At the table, that freshness and texture also give the wine considerable flexibility. In Mendoza, where lunch can become an event in its own right, that versatility matters. El Mirador Malbec 2021, which comes from Finca Mirador in Los Chacayes, at high altitude, also received Bronze at the 2026 International Wine and Spirits Challenge. This is a wine that illustrates the role of oak in the project. 

Sources describe substantial French oak involvement alongside stainless-steel maturation, giving the wine structure while allowing the fruit and site to remain part of the conversation. That balance matters. In a region where Malbec can easily become associated with concentration and obvious oak, freshness and site character offer a more interesting route. Behind the wines is a team with substantial experience.

Founder and CEO Loli Urquía leads the family project. Winemaker Leonardo Pisano brings experience from Uruguay and Mendoza, while vineyard manager Franco Bastías has worked with producers in Argentina, Chile and Napa Valley. Daniel Pi joined the project as consulting winemaker and adviser, bringing more than three decades of wine experience. The combination of family ownership, vineyard development and experienced technical leadership gives Urqo a solid foundation.

Argentina already has its icons, Mendoza has its famous addresses and the Valle de Uco has producers whose names have become shorthand for high-altitude Argentine wine. Urqo has entered a field where reputations have already been built. Its task now is to develop a recognisable identity of its own. The five international medals provide useful evidence that the wines are gaining attention. The vineyards explain some of the geographical logic behind them. Malbec gives the consumer an immediate point of reference, while Chardonnay suggests that the portfolio has room to become more expansive.

For travellers, that distinction matters.

A wine visit becomes more rewarding when the bottle connects to a place. The vineyard gives the wine a geography. The winery gives that geography a human story. The table turns the story into an experience and that is increasingly how I think about wine tourism in Argentina. The next chapter of wine country will belong partly to producers still building their identity. Urqo is writing its chapter now.

Salud!