Gone to pot, and now ready to climb the grape vine

Because of all of this and the commitment of Bulgheroni and his family to Bodega Garzon, he says, he is confident that it will give the world wines that will be of the highest quality.

Although focusing on the tannat varietal, the plan is for the winery to work with many other varietals and clones, including, albarino, which is rare in the region.

As the vineyard endeavors to deliver the quality wines it is promising, it is also burnishing its environmental credentials, aiming to be what it says will be the first vineyard in the world to have top certification from the United States Green Building Council, taking into account design, construction, operation, and maintenance.

The vineyard's managers say they are committed to sustainable agriculture and green farming, and aim being to achieve energy savings of about 40 percent compared with other similar facilities, and to produce 40 percent of its energy needs through mills and photovoltaic panels.

State-of-the-art technologies are being used throughout the entire winemaking process, including an optical berry sorter that selects only grapes best suited to be fermented.

The winery also uses concrete tanks instead of stainless steel, and ages wine predominantly in large casks rather than smaller barrels, as concrete favors the development and conservation of the native microbiology and microorganism, whereas wood enables the wine to breath.

"Since 2008, we have done a lot of experiments and made a lot of mistakes, and we are still at a young stage but have learned a lot," Antonin says. "In terms of New World wines we are the youngest in the family but that by no means means we are the worst."

The winery can produce 2 million liters of wine a year, and Brazil and the United States are, for the moment, its biggest markets.

"Uruguay is a small country, and we need to go out and let people know Uruguay is a wine country, with better wine," Antonin says.

The good news for Chinese wine drinkers is that the winery has begun distributing in the Chinese mainland, using the same importer it has used in Hong Kong, and will start with Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, Guangdong province, since mid-2016.