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A slower pace of life at Postales Uco Valley

There’s something very special about waking up in the Uco Valley. The gentle whispering of mountain breeze rushing through the leaves of the alamos trees and the grapevines, the golden sunrise which casts a glowing light on the Andes mountains in the distance, and the calm feeling the overcomes you in this most peaceful corner of the world. It’s the sort of wake up you want to linger over for hours, and one of the most peaceful places to gently wake up in the Uco Valley is this year’s Accommodation Winner in Mendoza — the beautiful boutique hotel of Postales.

When you roll through Rheinhessen, along those soft, vineyard-strewn hills, you find on the outskirts of a small village named Köngernheim a very inconspicuous assemble of buildings. When you step through the gate, a whole new world opens: old half-timberes houses surround a romantiv yard and cuddle the main house – an old grain mill. Its secrets lodge on the inside: highly modern, yet cosy rooms, a gourmet restaurant, and a 110 square meter spa area with yoga room, saunas and an outdorr pool that bows to the wine dedication of the area.

The sky-high cypresses remind of southern Italy, palm trees grow behind the house, and the boxwoods form maze games for the eyes to linger – truly, the gardens at Weingut Listmann remind of a different time and place. Yet, we're here in Rheinhessen, only a few kilometers from the Palatinate which they call the Tuscany of Germany. "I always loved that view, when, driving over the Brenner Pass, we came to Italy and saw those cypresses", Eckhard Lismann rhapsodizes: "Whatever they're having in terms of gardens, we can have here, too."

Villabuena de Álava, a small village with 300 inhabitants, lies on both slopes of a ravine carved out by a small creek.  You could drive by the village on the main road and probably miss it completely if you weren’t looking carefully. But if you turn off the road and drive down the hill into the village, you are in for a pleasant surprise, because this village has more than 40 wineries, a fact that surely deserves a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Twelve of these wineries, along with the spectacular Hotel Viura, have created an innovative wine tour through the village that won a regional 2019 ‘Best Of Wine Tourism’ award from the Great Wine Capitals Global Network.

We decided to take the tour to find out for ourselves.