The road is long and winding, passing through endless acres of persimmon groves. In most of Brazil, cattle rules, but here, in the uplands of the Serra Gaúcha in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, sheep graze the verdant meadows. Visitors to Brazil tend to picture thick, tropical jungles and long, sandy beaches. However, at Monte Astral, a winery outside the city of Farroupilha, it looks a lot more like Tuscany: gently rolling hills covered in vineyards and olive groves.
Brazil isn’t traditionally a big wine-drinking country—favoring beer and caipirinhas instead— but it’s the world’s 14th-largest grape producer and 11th-largest wine producer. Unlike in much of the rest of the world, the wine industry is growing, with consumption rising 42 percent from 2024 to 2025.
Founders Paulo and Fernanda Rutzen taste wine straight from the tank at Monte Astral’s cellar.
Photo by Pedro Bonacina
A decade ago, wine bars were rare in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro; ones that served Brazilian wine even rarer. Now, they are everywhere.
Rio Grande do Sul, which borders Uruguay and Argentina, is Brazil’s primary wine region, thanks to a 19th-century influx of Italian and German settlers who found a climate that’s conducive to grape-growing (high altitude, warm summers, cool winters). They decided to introduce vines.
The Vale dos Vinhedos, a region within the Serra Gaúcha around 15 miles from Monte Astral, is said to have Latin America’s highest concentration of vineyards, with the likes of Casa Valduga and Salton tracing their roots back more than a century.
By contrast, Monte Astral is an upstart, founded in 2017 (with wine from its own grapes first made in 2021) by Paulo Rutzen and his wife, Fernanda. Something of a bon vivant, Rutzen, a former lawyer, businessman, and race car driver, fell in love with wine on business trips to France in the early 2010s, when natural wine was taking Paris by storm.
Back in Brazil, where the vast majority of wine is produced conventionally (using pesticides in the vineyard and lab-grown yeasts and sulfites in the cellar), the light, easy-drinking wines he’d come to enjoy were hard to come by. “I always wanted to make wine, so we decided to produce our own,” Rutzen says as we walk through his vineyard. He elected to farm his 17 acres according to biodynamic principles, treating the whole property as an integrated, holistic unit and eschewing pesticides; not coincidentally, the air and the vines teemed with birds and insects.
Monte Astral is small but growing, with top São Paulo restaurants (D.O.M., Cepa) and wine bars (Plou, Sede261) rushing to stock its wines. This year, the winery produced 25,000 bottles in 15 different styles, tending toward the light and juicy, from a range of grapes, including pinot noir, cabernet franc, sangiovese, and chardonnay. The experimental nature of its production is typical of a nascent scene still finding its feet. “Everyone’s trying to see what works,” Rutzen says, “then narrow it down.”
How to visit: Vineyard tours that include a winetasting start at R$60 (US$12) and can be booked in advance via WhatsApp: +55 54 98132 4739. English tours are available, if booked in advance.
More Serra Gaúcha wineries to explore
Faccin
Monte Belo do Sul is a small town in the heart of the Vale dos Vinhedos that lives and breathes wine. After a short drive up narrow, winding lanes from town, you’ll find Faccin, a small vineyard where the eponymous family has grown grapes since the 1930s. Current owner Antônio Faccin produces several excellent natural wines, including standout cabernet franc and pinot noir. Whether you arrive unannounced or prebooked, he’ll likely be on hand for a tour or a tasting, complete with homemade bread, jam, and local charcuterie.
How to visit: Book a four-wine, 30-minute tasting. Available daily. About $12 per person. WhatsApp: +55 54 99309 3439
Ales Victoria
The perfect base for a weekend exploring the Serra Gaúcha’s vineyards, Ales Victoria is a winery that also has a hotel, a terrace with views over sprawling vineyards, and a restaurant that serves local fare (cappeletti pasta, roast pork with rice and beans). The property offers a number of ways to get acquainted with Brazilian wine: It runs tours to other local vineyards, it’s a short walk to the famous winery Miolo, and its cellar has one of the country’s largest selections of Brazilian wines (although Ales Victoria’s own merlot, reminiscent of a Super Tuscan, with notes of plum and black pepper, is hard to beat).
How to visit: Consult a long list of local wine-related experiences that are located at Ales Victoria and in the immediate region. Book in advance via the website.
Vinícola Valmarino
A 10-minute drive from Monte Astral, Vinícola Valmarino’s roots are far deeper than the modern vineyard, with the Salton family having produced wine in the region since the 1990s. Known as one of the leading lights in the Brazilian wine movement (and praised as some of the best cabernet franc in the country by Paulo Rutzen), at Valmarino you’ll find several different vineyard tours and tastings, which take place in a charming 1930s farmhouse.
How to visit: Pick from a tour/tasting combo or different tasting-only options, including a fun “blind” option where the wines are served in unmarked black bags after a presentation of the winery’s history. You’ll then be invited to use your senses to match the aromas and flavors to different wine styles. About $23 per person.
