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Rivera, in northern Uruguay, is average in size among Uruguay's 19 administrative departments. It is named after Jose Fructuoso Rivera, the country's first president, in honor of his efforts to liberate these lands from the Brazilian Empire, itself only newly independent of Portugal.
Sandwiched between the Uruguay-Brazil border and the Tacuarembo department, Rivera is home to some of Uruguay's hillier landscapes. In the context of most South American wine regions, this might imply soaring Andean mountainsides such as those found in eastern Chile and western Argentina, but Uruguay is relatively flat and low-lying. Thus the 'highest vineyard in Uruguay' as the region's key producer proudly describes his vineyards, lies at an altitude of 700ft (215m). While this is comfortably higher than anywhere in Bordeaux (the climate of which bears remarkable similarities to that of much of viticultural Uruguay), it falls far short of the dizzying heights of the vineyards found in Salta, northern Argentina, for example.
Rivera has only one significant wine-growing sub-region: Cerro Chapeu, right on the Brazilian border. The Cerro do Chapeu, after which the sub-region is named, is a hill (oddly enough on the northern, Brazilian side of the border) located just south of Rivera town, which is itself bisected by the border. The Brazilian half of Rivera town is named Santana do Livramento, and marks the southernmost point of Brazil's Fronteira/Campanha wine region.
Cerro Chapeu has just one commercial winery, Bodegas Carrau – a reminder of the relatively small scale on which quality wine is made in Uruguay. The Carrau family's winemaking history dates back eight generations, 260 years and more than 6000 miles to Barcelona, Spain, the city from which so many families began their journey to South America. The current winemaker, Francisco Carrau, has set himself the goal of promoting Uruguayan Tannat to the world, in the hope it will one day rank alongside Chilean Carmenere and Argentine Malbec with respect to popularity and fame.
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