Brazil has already tasted the vintage.
Nobody can tell until October.

Editorial

What the house does when it can't tell

The tasting that picks the best Brazilian wines of the year has already happened. The result exists, it's written down, and nobody can read it until October 17. This issue was made within that rule.

There's an obvious temptation when a secret like this comes along: pretend you know. Drop hints. Publish “the favorites” with the air of someone who has a source. It's cheap, it gets clicks, and it goes stale within a week, when the result comes out and doesn't match.

The house has just one rule, inherited from Nº 0: no source, no publishing. It works both ways. It's there to demand numbers with a verifiable origin, and it's there to admit when a number isn't public yet. This is the second case.

So this issue doesn't hand you the podium. It hands you something better, something nobody usually tells you: how the judging works. How many glasses, how many winemakers, what they get to see of the bottle (nothing), how long it takes, and why the secrecy is precisely what gives the result its value. If you understand the tasting, you'll know how to read the result when it arrives.

A lot has changed since the August pilot. The site came off the drawing board: the Rankings ballot box has already closed one round and opened another, the Garimpo became the notebook of what the house drank and stamped, with the price checked in a store or online shop, Open Bottle gave a home of its own to what the table opens, and the Pocket Guide got its own page instead of dumping you into a PDF. All of that is further down.

A correction, because correcting fast is also a house rule: in the September 9 post we said 108 winemakers judged 569 wines. The 569 were the entries. 558 made it to the table, judged by 109 winemakers. Those are the right numbers, and they're the ones you'll read here.

The result comes in Nº 2, on October 20, three days after it's unsealed in Bento Gonçalves. With analysis, without automatic reverence, and with the names of the regions you'll be hearing about all year.

If you've just arrived, the deal is simple. Once a month this magazine tells you what happened, what's happening and what's coming, without sommelier-speak. Opinion comes signed as opinion. Advertising comes labeled as advertising, outside the content. And price, when it shows up, is a range checked in a store or online shop, with the date it was checked, because an exact price nailed down goes stale in days.

Until then, enjoy the suspense. It isn't marketing: it's the protocol at work.

It happened · the tasting

Four days, not a label in sight

From September 1 to 4, in Bento Gonçalves, the 34th Avaliação Nacional de Vinhos (Brazil's National Wine Evaluation) did the work that puts a name on the Brazilian vintage. No brand, no winery and no talking in the room.

The mechanics are simple to describe and uncomfortable to carry out. There were eight sessions, morning and afternoon, with three panels per session and nine winemakers on each panel. Each professional gets the glass and nothing else: no brand, no producer, no price, no region. They judge the wine, not the reputation.

The scores follow international standards and go on each winemaker's individual sheet, with no out-loud discussion that could anchor the opinion of the person sitting next to them. It's the same principle as the ballot box on our site: whoever votes paid for their own bottle, and nobody buys a spot.

The secrecy is absolute and lasts until the public reveal. Those who tasted don't know what they tasted, and those who organized aren't telling. Add to that the fact that the 2026 Vintage set a record for reach, with wines from ten states and the Federal District, and what you have is the widest portrait Brazilian wine has ever taken of itself.

It's worth saying what the tasting is not: it's not a ranking of popular taste, it's not a contest paid for by brands, and it doesn't tell you which wine you'll enjoy drinking. It's a technical measurement of quality within each category, done by people who make wine. It serves to separate what's well made from what isn't, and that's plenty.

Sources: Associação Brasileira de Enologia (34th Avaliação Nacional de Vinhos, 2026 Vintage) and coverage of the selection tasting by Melhor do Sul and Rádio Pampa, September 1 to 4, 2026. Links at the end of the page.

It happened · coming up

October 17: the day the seal breaks

Eight hundred people in a room in Bento Gonçalves will find out, all at once, which wines represent the 2026 Vintage. Sixteen of them will be tasted right there, on the spot, by people who don't know what's in the glass either.

The format is the best part. The sixteen chosen wines are served to all eight hundred people at the same time, and each one is commented on by a guest who doesn't know which wine they're drinking either. The comment comes before the identity. You can't praise the brand; you can only talk about what's in the glass.

“Representative of the vintage” deserves a translation, because it doesn't mean “best wine in Brazil.” It means: within its category, this wine is among the ones that express well what the year gave. A representative sparkling and a representative red didn't compete with each other. It's a portrait, not a single podium.

The event is open to the public and seats are limited, which in practice means tickets are hard to get. If you're not going to Bento Gonçalves, the good news is that the result goes public at the same moment, and that's when you can actually take a list to the shelf.

A note on timing, so you don't wait in vain: there's a gap between the reveal and the shelf. A representative wine doesn't turn into a supermarket deal the following week. What changes fastest is the restaurant wine list and the attention of Brazilian importers.

On our side, the plan is this: Contrarrótulo Nº 2 comes out on October 20 with the result already digested, not with the raw list everyone will be reposting on the 17th. We want to answer the question the list doesn't, which is what changes on your shelf after this. Prices checked on the shelf, when there are any, come out in the Garimpo over the following weeks, with the date they were checked, as always.

Sources: Associação Brasileira de Enologia · Avaliação Nacional de Vinhos (official program of the 34th edition, October 17, 2026, Bento Gonçalves, RS).

In the glass

The white born in the hottest place in the south

Everybody learned that Brazil is good at bubbles. Meanwhile, the border with Uruguay became an address for still white wine with an ID card of its own, and nobody said a word.

Campanha Gaúcha is the warmest, driest wine region in southern Brazil. Summers of steady sun, properly cold winters and well-defined seasons: the grape ripens with its sugar up and its acidity still standing, which is exactly what a white needs so it doesn't turn into lukewarm juice.

Among the white grapes, the ones that adapted best there are Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc. The region's whites come out with a riper, fruitier profile, more “New World” than the rest of Brazilian wine, and that's what makes a Campanha label seem “from another country” in a blind tasting.

The IP (Indication of Provenance) rules are tough where it matters: 100% of the grapes have to come from inside the delimited area, and a wine only carries the name of the grape variety on the label if at least 85% of it is that grape. There are 36 authorized varieties. In plain words: the label isn't decoration, it's an enforceable commitment.

How to order without fear. A Campanha white that hasn't seen oak comes out citrusy, light and with lively acidity, and works best chilled to between 8 and 10 °C, as an aperitif or with light-textured food. If the bottle says it spent time in barrel, expect more body and less freshness. Neither one is the right one: it's about the occasion, not a hierarchy.

And your wallet. The Open Bottle from September 11 on the site is a Campanha white: a Chardonnay with Viognier recommended by a reader, which the house checked in the up to R$ 50 range, with the lowest price at R$ 39.90 on a supermarket chain's shelf. It's the same territory as the supermarket Chileans, with the difference that here the shipping is domestic and the vintage reaches your hands younger. In the three-liter box, the cost per bottle drops to close to R$ 30, if you drink white without ceremony.

Sources: Embrapa Uva e Vinho (IP Campanha Gaúcha: boundaries, area, grape varieties and labeling rules) · Associação dos Produtores de Vinhos Finos da Campanha Gaúcha.

Coming up

Mark your calendar

• SEP 18
  International Grenache Day

  Third Friday of September. The grape that holds up the south of France and a good part of Spain, and that in Brazil still fits in a paragraph. A good excuse to try one.

• SEP 30
  Ballot box Round Nº 2 closes

  Supermarket white up to R$ 50, in the Rankings. The result comes out first in the stories, which is the promise published on the page.

• OCT 10 to DEC 6
  Alba International White Truffle Fair, in Piedmont

  96th edition, on Saturdays and Sundays. It lines up with the Nebbiolo harvest, the Barolo grape: it's the most indulgent month of the year for anyone crossing the ocean.

• OCT 17
  Avaliação Nacional de Vinhos, in Bento Gonçalves (RS)

  The reveal of the 2026 Vintage to 800 people, with 16 wines tasted at the same time and commented on blind. The biggest yearly thermometer of Brazilian wine.

• OCT 20
  Contrarrótulo Nº 2, with the result

  Three days after the seal breaks. People on the e-mail list get it on the 19th, before the site.

This month's strikethrough

“Reservado” → the winery's youngest

No minimum aging time, no grape selection. In Brazil the law even defines the word: “young wine ready to drink” (IN 14/2018), in other words, the entry-level wine. In Brazil and Chile, “reservado” usually names the winery's most basic line, with a name that suggests the opposite. It's not fraud, it's marketing: the word is up for grabs and the company uses it. Careful not to confuse it with “reserva”, which has a strict law behind it in Spain, loose rules in Argentina and is decoration in Chile and Brazil. Context is everything, and the back of the bottle is where it lives.

How to check in ten seconds at the shelf: turn the bottle around. If the back doesn't cite a denomination of origin, an aging time or a law that backs up the word, it's decoration. The house glossary has another 41 entries in the same tone, all searchable.

From the ballot box

Round Nº 1 closed, with a tie for second place

Supermarket red up to R$ 50, voted on by people who pay for their own bottle. Never by an advertiser.

All ten labels and the lower positions are on the Rankings page. What the scoreboard says without needing analysis: two Argentinians in front, a Brazilian sharing second place, and the ever-present supermarket Chileans behind all of them. Similar price, different result.

The Garimpo and Open Bottle

The house drinks and stamps; the table opens and tells

The Garimpo lost its calendar and gained a tougher rule: what goes in there is wine the house bought, drank and stamped, with the price range checked in a store or online shop and the date it was checked. A bottle the house hasn't opened yet isn't a Garimpo pick.

What the table recommends has had a home of its own since September. On Open Bottle you'll find the Portada, recommended by Fabi, the Benjamin Malbec, from Js-Jardy, and the Miolo Seleção Chardonnay & Viognier, from Alexandre Monteiro, which the house found for R$ 39.90. Each one with the name on the card, because that was the pilot's promise: the curation doesn't depend on a single person. Opened a bottle? Tell us there, with a photo if you like and a line that's all yours.

From the cellar

Free on the site, no sign-up: the No-Fuss Pocket Guide with the 20 terms that solve almost any shelf, now on its own page to read right there; the glossary with 42 searchable entries; and What wine is this?, which takes the name of the wine or the name of the dish.