Bodega Cuvelier Los Andes

Parcel work before the cellar

By hectare, Adrián Manchón reads the vineyard as Winemaker and General Manager at Bodega Cuvelier Los Andes in Tunuyán. The estate gives him 55 hectares to work with, but he does not treat that ground as one block. Laboratory testing has identified differences hectare by hectare, and his cellar decisions begin with that division: each part of the property asks to be understood before it becomes Grand Malbec, Grand Vin, Colección, Malbec Rosé, or Cuvée Natur.

Adrián Manchón holds the house’s first winemaker role as well as general management of the property, which keeps the vineyard, the cellar, and the finished wines in the same field of responsibility. What it does state is the shape of the work here: close estate oversight, parcel-level reading, and a program built around Malbec-based blends, rosé, and cuvée rather than a broad, outsourced range.

Fifty-five hectares, read in parts

The method at Bodega Cuvelier Los Andes rests on separation before blending. Manchón has described the estate directly: “We have these micro-terroirs on our property. There are 55 hectares of property, and each hectare has its own distinct terroir that we have identified through laboratory testing.” In a winery focused on Bordeaux varieties in the Uco Valley, that sentence matters because it places the discipline before the gesture of assembly. Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet Franc are not only varietal names here; they are materials from a high-altitude estate that must pass through a set of decisions about where they grew.

The property sits at 915 meters in Vista Flores, within Tunuyán, on alluvial stone and sandy soils. Its farming is organic, biodynamic, and sustainable, and the scale remains boutique. Those facts put limits around the craft. The wines are still red and rosé, with the named cuvées carrying the burden of house identity rather than a long catalog of side projects. The vineyard comes first, then the cellar has to hold the differences without sanding them down.

The Andes in the room

The place itself has the quiet of a small estate rather than the theater of a large visitor program. Classical architecture stands among the vines, and the Cordillera de Los Andes sits in view beyond the rows. The tasting room and private tastings are part of the house’s hospitality, but the room reads best as an extension of the vineyard: measured, composed, and close to the land that feeds the tanks and barrels.

Inside that setting, the work has a particular kind of restraint. The cellar belongs to a property whose identity depends on distinctions too small to see from a distance: a change in stone, sand, exposure, or vine behavior from one hectare to the next. Manchón’s task is to keep those distinctions legible when they become Grand Vin, Grand Malbec, Colección, Malbec Rosé, and Cuvée Natur. The view from the terrace and 55 hectares of Vista Flores arrive in a glass of Grand Vin.