Bouza, B6 Tannat

URUGUAY is heaven for people who like old cars – sometimes quite old. Bouza, founded in 2000 in the undulating hills north and northwest of Montevideo, has a remarkable collection of them; a museum, in fact. What with that and a rather good restaurant, the bodega is worth a visit if you happen to be in Uruguay.

if you are, you’ll be struck by the clarity of light – almost sea light, because neither the atlantic nor the broad rio de la Plata are far away – but also the temperate warmth. it’s not that hot here, and there’s cloud cover, and humidity. all these things are perfect if you want to make ripe reds with moderate alcohol – and isn’t that what almost everybody wants these days?

so the late-ripening, tannic Tannat grapes can stay on the vine until they’re properly ripe – which means no greenness, no rusticity. The bottle is slightly unfortunate because its weight and square-shouldered shape leads you to expect something oaky and extracted, and this isn’t; instead it’s a burly but fresh glassful of blackberry fruit and spice, extremely easy to drink and a lesson to anyone who thinks that the answer to Tannat lies in oak and chewiness.

The wine is fermented in steel tanks, and then aged in new French oak barrels for 16 months, and it simply soaks up the oak, leaving

no feeling of oakiness. It’s not an incredibly complex wine but it is hugely enjoyable, and it’s a most accomplished wine, sensitively handled, from a young wine country.

It is one of those instances where a grape variety can seem most at home a long way away.