At A Glance
- **Country**
- Argentina
- **Region**
- Mendoza, Uco Valley
- **Collective**
- Clos de los Siete
- **Founded**
- 2005
- **Founders**
- Alfred and Michèle Bonnie
- **Grapes**
- Malbec, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Viognier
- **Elevation**
- 1,200 metres
- **Winery**
- Gravity-flow, completed 2009
The Producer
Bodegas DiamAndes sits at 1,200 metres in the Uco Valley, Mendoza, where a Belgian couple bought Andean land in 2005 and built a winery designed to disappear into the landscape. Alfred and Michèle Bonnie chose one of Argentina's coldest, highest wine districts for their estate, joining Clos de los Siete, a collective of four wineries farming a shared plateau in the Valle de Uco.
The range runs from a Malbec-Syrah blend under the Perlita label up through the single-varietal DiamAndes de Uco Malbec and a Grande Reserve Malbec-Cabernet Sauvignon at the top. A Viognier white sits outside the red core. The bottles are made in a purpose-built gravity-flow facility completed in 2009, designed by Argentine architects Bórmida and Yanzón.
Place
The Uco Valley lies south and west of Mendoza city, pushed up against the Andes foothills where irrigation water comes from snowmelt and the growing season stays long and dry. At 1,200 metres, the air is thin enough that the diurnal temperature swing between day and night is wide: hot enough by afternoon to ripen dark-skinned grapes fully, cold enough by midnight to lock acidity into the fruit before it fades. That combination gives Malbec from this altitude a darker, denser mid-palate than lower valley versions, while the cool nights keep the finish from feeling heavy.
Clos de los Siete was one of the earlier attempts to farm this plateau as a collective: four producers sharing infrastructure and elevation rather than competing across adjacent plots. DiamAndes draws on land within that shared 850-hectare footprint, though its individual parcels and acreage within the collective are not disclosed publicly.
Soil And Site
The Uco Valley's soils at this elevation are alluvial, laid down by Andean meltwater over millennia, with rock fragments, sand, and clay in proportions that shift across the valley floor. Drainage is good, which keeps vine roots working downward rather than broad. The altitude itself acts as a selection filter: only grapes that can ripen fully in a short, intense season produce dense, structured fruit here. Malbec, the dominant grape of Argentine wine, performs particularly well in this context, concentrating colour and dark-fruit character.
Story
Alfred and Michèle Bonnie arrived in the Uco Valley in 2005 when Argentine wine was already attracting European attention but before the high-altitude corridor had filled with international investment. Joining Clos de los Siete placed the estate inside a collaborative framework: shared land management across four producers, a model more familiar from European cooperative traditions than from the independently-owned estancias that had defined Mendoza wine for generations.
The decision to commission Bórmida and Yanzón for the winery, completed in 2009, extended that philosophy from viticulture into architecture. Rather than a landmark building, the firm designed a facility that slopes with the land: a gravity-flow layout where grapes, must, and wine move by elevation rather than pump. The building is low and follows the natural slope of the land.
Vineyards And Cellar
The winery operates on a gravity-flow principle, meaning grapes arrive at the top of the building and move through processing, fermentation, and ageing by descent rather than pump. At high altitude, where fruit arrives with thinner skins and concentrated phenolics, reducing mechanical handling at each stage limits oxidation and preserves aromatic freshness. The Viognier in particular, a grape whose perfume is volatile and easily lost, benefits from this gentler handling: the white blossom and apricot character in the glass traces partly to how little the fruit was disturbed between vine and barrel.
For the reds, the gravity-flow approach shapes tannin texture. Malbec at 1,200 metres arrives with naturally dense colour and firm tannin; handling it with minimal pump pressure keeps that tannin smooth rather than hard.
Wines
The range moves in three steps from Perlita at the entry level to Grande Reserve at the top, with the Viognier running as a separate white tier.
Perlita (Malbec-Syrah blend) is the most approachable wine in the range. Syrah brings a floral lift and adds colour and flesh to the dark-fruited Malbec core. The tannin is soft but present, giving a silky, velvety weight on the mid-palate that finishes with ripe dark fruit.
DiamAndes de Uco Malbec is the mid-tier single-varietal. The attack is clean, opening on dark plum and blackberry before developing chocolate and pepper; a pleasant smokiness comes through on the finish. The tannin is firm enough to age but polished enough to drink now.
DiamAndes de Uco Grande Reserve (Malbec-Cabernet Sauvignon blend) is the most complex wine in the range. Malbec contributes the rounded, velvety tannin body the valley is known for; Cabernet Sauvignon tightens the mid-palate and extends the finish with its darker, more angular frame.
DiamAndes de Uco Viognier is the estate's only white. Silky on the palate from the outset, it moves through white blossom and ripe apricot before a mineral note of struck flint sharpens the mid-palate. Fresh almond on the finish keeps it from feeling over-ripe.
In The Glass
Across the red range, the dominant character is density without heaviness: dark fruit, chocolate and spice in the mid-palate, with tannin that is always present but consistently smooth. The altitude explains both facts. Long, cool nights hold acidity in the fruit so the finish lifts rather than drops. The gravity-flow cellar keeps the tannin from picking up hardness from pumping.
Perlita opens with ripe dark fruit and a velvety palate weight. It is the most immediately generous of the three reds. The DiamAndes de Uco Malbec adds smokiness and a firmer tannin frame, with chocolate and pepper arriving after the initial dark-fruit burst. Grande Reserve shows the Cabernet Sauvignon influence in a tighter mid-palate and a longer, more angular finish: the two grapes work against each other in a productive way, Malbec softening what Cabernet Sauvignon sharpens.
The Viognier opens differently from anything else in the range: aromatic from the first pour, white blossom and apricot on the nose, then a mineral flint note that cuts through the richness on the mid-palate. The fresh almond on the finish is clean and dry.
A Bottle To Understand It
Start with the DiamAndes de Uco Malbec. It is the clearest expression of what altitude and gravity-flow winemaking do to this grape: a clean, silky attack that opens onto dark plum and blackberry, then chocolate and black pepper, with a thread of pleasant smokiness across the finish. The tannin is firm enough to feel substantive but polished enough not to grip. It sits at the mid-point of the range, above Perlita's immediate softness and below Grande Reserve's Cabernet-driven complexity. It is the right bottle for understanding the house style before moving up or across.
Anecdote
When Bórmida and Yanzón submitted the final plans for the DiamAndes winery in 2009, the building barely broke the surface of the valley floor. The design called for the facility to follow the natural slope of the land rather than stand against it: grape reception at the top, tanks below, ageing further down, all connected by gravity. The architects had built wineries before, but this one was conceived as a piece of landscape design first and a production facility second. Alfred Bonnie, who had crossed from Belgium to buy this land four years earlier with no prior track record in Argentine wine, approved it. The building went up, low and flat, and when it was finished it looked from a distance more like a continuation of the hillside than a place where wine was being made.
Final Word
Bodegas DiamAndes is a high-altitude Uco Valley estate built on a double premise: that Andean elevation makes better Malbec, and that a winery designed around gravity rather than machinery treats the fruit better on its way to the bottle. Four wines cover the range from the approachable Perlita Malbec-Syrah to the complex Grande Reserve, with a Viognier white as an outlier. The DiamAndes de Uco Malbec has a clean, silky attack and dark fruit, chocolate, pepper, and pleasant smokiness.