Cavas Wine Lodge

The Hotel

Cavas Wine Lodge opened on 12 December 2005 as the personal project of Argentine hotelier Cecilia Díaz Chuit and her husband Martín Díaz Chuit on a 14-hectare working vineyard in the Alto Agrelo subregion of Luján de Cuyo, the principal Malbec-producing department of Mendoza, 22 kilometres south of central Mendoza city. The architectural commission was Argentine architect Ricardo Mainero with interior architecture by Buenos Aires designer Maria Mendizábal; the brief was 18 detached single-storey adobe-and-clay villas arrayed across the vineyard, each with a private fireplace, a private plunge pool, and a private rooftop terrace facing west toward the Andes. The property entered Relais & Châteaux in 2008 and has held the designation continuously, it is one of three Relais & Châteaux properties in Argentina.

The 18 villas are uniformly configured at 95 square metres each, with no suite-level differentiation, every guest experience is the same villa product, deliberately. Each villa includes the bedroom (with king-size bed, fireplace and floor-to-ceiling Andes-facing window), bathroom (travertine and oxide-finish), private plunge pool (4 metres, heated year-round), private outdoor sitting area with grill, and a private rooftop terrace. Bath products are local La Vialé Mendoza-made botanicals. The property's tasting cellar holds 4,500 bottles, with deep verticals on Malbec from Catena Zapata, Achaval-Ferrer, Rutini, Salentein, Pulenta and Bodega Norton, the principal Mendoza estates within 30 minutes' drive of the lodge.

The dining programme is the headline operational layer. The Restaurant runs a five-course set dinner each evening, with Argentine-Mediterranean register from chef Adriana Pirovano (the Mendoza-born chef who has held the Cavas kitchen since 2007) and a wine-pairing programme that includes 6 to 8 different Mendoza wines per evening, the property runs the most ambitious wine-pairing programme of any Argentine wine-region hotel. Lunch is on the vineyard terrace; afternoon-empanada-and-wine service is included as the included aperitivo register. The Spa Cavas runs four treatment rooms with the local-Mendoza-Malbec-grape-marc treatment programme. The lodge runs daily winery-visits with a private guide programme.

The Luján de Cuyo position is the booking proposition. From the lodge it is 22 kilometres / 30 minutes by car to central Mendoza city, 25 minutes to Mendoza International Airport (MDZ), 15 minutes to Catena Zapata winery, 12 minutes to Achaval-Ferrer, and 35 minutes to the Uco Valley wineries (Salentein, Pulenta, Bodega Atamisque). The lodge runs a complimentary daily shuttle to central Mendoza twice a day. For travellers wanting the unambiguous Argentina wine-country booking, particularly for honeymoons, milestone anniversaries and wellness retreats centred on wine, Cavas Wine Lodge is the right answer. The Vines Resort is the Uco Valley alternative; Cavas is the Luján de Cuyo answer.

Best Occasion Fit

Practical Information

Also Great in Mendoza