The Best Time to Visit Mendoza's Wine Country
When to visit Mendoza for wine: harvest, the Vendimia festival, snow on the peaks and the quiet months. What each season actually looks like, and what it costs.
Mendoza is in the southern hemisphere and at altitude, which catches out more visitors than anything else about the place. January is high summer, July is genuinely cold, and the vineyards look completely different in April from how they look in October.
Here is what each part of the year actually gives you, and what it takes away.
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February to April: harvest, and the busiest weeks
This is vendimia — the grape harvest — and it is the season the region organises itself around. Cellars are working rather than performing: you will see fruit arriving, sorting tables running, tanks being filled. For a lot of visitors that is the whole point.
The Fiesta Nacional de la Vendimia, which has run annually since 1936, culminates in the first week of March and is Argentina’s biggest harvest festival. It is spectacular and the city is full. Book tours, restaurants and hotels much further ahead than you would otherwise.
The vineyards are green and heavy with fruit, and the crates at the row ends are the photograph everyone comes home with. Days are warm, and by late April the leaves start to turn.
Trade-off: the busiest and priciest weeks of the year, and the winery restaurants that seat limited covers are the first things to go.
May to August: the quiet, cheap months
Winter. The vines are bare and pruned back to spurs, the Andes carry real snow, and the region empties out.
This is the cheapest time to come and the easiest to get a table at the estates that are otherwise impossible. The wine does not care what season it is, the cellars are warm, and a tasting room with four people in it is a better experience than one with forty.
Trade-off: several premium estates cut their opening days, some close for part of the winter, and the vineyards are not photogenic. Dress properly — the Uco Valley at 1,000 metres plus is significantly colder than the city.
September to November: the best photographs
Spring. New growth comes through bright green while the peaks still carry winter snow, which is the combination that makes Mendoza look like the postcards. Days are mild, the light is clean, and the crowds have not arrived.
If your priority is what the place looks like rather than what is happening in the cellar, this is the window. It is also comfortable for anything outdoors — the wine and bike day, which pairs a ride through the Luján de Cuyo vineyards with a second ride beside the Potrerillos reservoir in the Andes, is at its best in spring. (our breakdown →)
Trade-off: nothing much is happening in the wineries. You are seeing the place, not the process.
December and January: hot, and busy with Argentines
High summer, and hot — regularly into the mid-30s Celsius. This is when Argentina takes its own holidays, so the region is busy with domestic visitors rather than international ones.
Tours run on their usual afternoon schedule, which in December means the hottest part of the day is spent in an air-conditioned van rather than a vineyard. That is not the worst arrangement.
Trade-off: the heat is real, and outdoor tastings at midday are less pleasant than they sound. Book morning departures if you can.
The things that are true all year
Sun protection, always. Mendoza sits high and dry, and the light is severe in every season. Every operator’s what-to-bring list mentions it.
A layer, always, if you are going to the Uco Valley. The valley is well over a thousand metres higher than the city, it cools fast after the sun drops, and the afternoon wind gets up. Guests underdress for it in January as often as in June.
Hail is the region’s defining risk. The black mesh you see stretched over the rows is hail netting — a summer storm can strip a vineyard in minutes. It is also the quickest way to tell a Mendoza vineyard photograph from a Californian one.
Free cancellation. Every tour listed on this site cancels free up to 24 hours before, which is worth knowing in a region where weather occasionally closes a mountain road.
So when should you go?
For the atmosphere and the working cellars: late February to March, and book early. For the photographs and the comfort: October and November. For the best value and the easiest access to the good estates: June and July, with a coat.
Whichever you pick, the region you choose matters more than the month — that is worked through in Mendoza’s wine regions compared.
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