Santa Julia Cuy Orange Natural Wine

When José Alberto Zuccardi named this label after his daughter Julia in the 1980s, the family was already farming Maipú's gravel-and-sand flats — the same soils that now anchor Santa Julia's Natural line. The Cuy Orange is built on certified-organic Chardonnay grown at the Maipú estate (approx. 650 m a.s.l.), where well-drained gravel over sandy subsoil strips the vine of excess vigour, concentrating phenolics and preserving the high natural acidity that makes extended skin contact viable rather than astringent. Mendoza's arid continental climate — wide diurnal swings, minimal rainfall, intense solar radiation — amplifies that phenolic structure while keeping aromatic lift intact. In the cellar, indigenous ambient yeasts drive fermentation with 45 days of skin-contact maceration, extracting tannin, colour, and textural grip without any sulfur additions at any stage. The wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered, preserving every particle of yeast-derived texture and skin-derived bitterness. What sets this apart categorically: at this price point in Argentina, zero-addition, unfiltered orange wine from a Fair for Life–certified estate (the first in Argentina, 2013) is essentially without peer. Drink on release for maximum aromatic freshness; the absence of SO₂ means the window is intentionally short.