The Story Behind Mendoza’s Unique Wellness Hotel From Argentina’s First Female Winemaker
There’s nothing typical about SB Winemaker’s House & Spa Suites, its founders, or the guest experience. Named for Susana Balbo, Argentina’s pioneering female oenologist, SB Winemaker’s House is located in the family’s former residence in Chacras de Coria, a short drive from Balbo’s winery and vineyard in Agrelo. This is a spa hotel where every suite is a spa. It doubles as an art hotel, where each piece shares a story relevant to Susana Balbo and her daughter and co-founder, Ana Lovaglio Balbo.
“Our story is what makes us unique,” the younger Balbo says, describing how the hotel was designed to conjure the feeling of being the guest of a local winemaker. “It’s unique because of our expertise and the curation of activities from a winemaker’s family. It’s unique because we’re showing Mendoza through our lens, and our guests can trust us.
The ambience is undeniably cozy. Elegant is the word that springs to mind with every hand-chosen piece of upholstery, every sip of wine at my seven-course dinner. Likening her approach to winemaking as “haute couture,” the same sentiment applies to her first hotel which channels all the poise, vibrancy, and audacity of her signature blends.
“I don’t bottle wine that doesn’t please my palate; I wanted my hotel to have everything I‘d hope to find in a hotel when I’m traveling,” says Susana Balbo, who deals exclusively with high-quality, luxury wines.
Argentina’s Queen of Torrontés
Susana Balbo and Ana Lovaglio Balbo. Photo courtesy SB Winemaker’s House & Spa Suites
Susana Balbo made history in 1981 as the first Argentinian woman to graduate with an oenology degree. Having presided over Wines of Argentina three times and picking up this year’s Decanter Hall of Fame award, Balbo is a legend in Latin America – and throughout her 42 international markets. She stormed the male-dominated winemaking industry in the 1980s and deviated even further from convention by specializing in white wines in a country ruled by Malbec. And while wine hotels appear across Mendoza’s three wine regions – Agrelo, Luján de Cuyo, and Valle de Uco – it’s incredibly rare to find a winemaker managing their own hotel.
After nine years working with white Torrontés grapes in their native high-altitude valleys in Cafayate, Salta Province, Susana Balbo returned to Mendoza in 1991 with a mind to revolutionize the wine industry. Planting Torrontés grapes in a realm of red sounds like a gamble, but to Balbo, there was no risk, only potential. “According to Ana, I don’t have the chip for risk in my mind,” she says, stating her belief “there’s no failure, only experiences.” 2024 marks the 25th anniversary of Susana Balbo Wines.
“I was absolutely sure of success; winemaking is 100 percent science,” continues Balbo, who had intended to study nuclear physics in Bariloche. She settled for oenology in Mendoza to placate her family, thus becoming the first Argentinian woman to gain a degree in winemaking. Balbo establishes, “there is art, but winemaking needs science to maintain a consistent quality and standard.” Her production fuses traditional methods with the avant-garde and she’s forever experimenting with new methods, dedicating as many as three years to perfecting her blends.
In Ana Lovaglio Balbo’s words, her mother is “innovative, open minded, and always current.” Indeed, Susana thought outside the box yet again when she honed her business model on the export market – something else unusual at the time in Argentina.
Innovation – the signature trait of the Balbo family
Photo: Hannah D. Cooper
Ana Lovaglio Balbo brought her financial astuteness and commercial savviness to the family business in 2012 one year after her brother, José Lovaglio Balbo, joined as an oenologist alongside Susana. While José took on the mantle for research and innovation (focusing on rosé wines, another Argentinian blind spot until then) Ana instigated the company’s marketing department. Besides rebranding the wine labels and revamping the Susana Balbo Signature Rosé in a glorious glass-corked keepsake bottle, Ana spotted potential for enotourism. She opened the restaurant Osadía de Crear at a time when few Mendoza wineries offered gastronomy experiences.
Balbo encouraged but never pressured her daughter to join the family business. This organic move gave Ana, previously consulting at a Big Four firm in Buenos Aires, the freedom to cultivate her own role – much as Susana had forged her own path in the wine industry. It was Ana Lovaglio Balbo who helmed the first hotel under Susana Balbo Unique Stays. Upon arrival at the lobby, guests are greeted by an art installation that couldn’t be more representative of the Balbo family and their values.
Art and wine, science and nature
The Tree of Life. Photo courtesy SB Winemaker’s House & Spa Suites
Both Susana and Ana advocate for nature. Growing up in Mendoza at the foot of the Andes, Susana’s childhood was spent horseback riding and immersed in wild landscapes. Ana enthuses her own passion for biking and hiking, urging hotel guests to split their time between the vineyards and mountains. The employment of an Experience Curator at SB Winemaker’s House makes anything possible, from cat skiing to private helicopter rides.
This is captured by a hotel art collection founded on Argentinian landscapes and Latin American culture. Hanging in the hotel’s cocktail bar, the Mendocino artist Sergio Roggerone’s Virgen de la Uva (Virgin of the Grape) was a four-year endeavor using a pre-Hispanic technique collating butterfly wings and hummingbird wings. Just as science – or good wine – isn’t rushed, neither is art.
Climbing up the lobby wall, Sergio Roggerone’s magnum opus, El Árbol de la Vida (The Tree of Life), shows the seven stages of life and inspires the seasonal tasting menus at the hotel restaurant, La Vida. The trunk symbolizes growth, the flowers stand for female entrepreneurship. Parasites are a reminder that hindrances must be overcome. A buoyant blue bird nurturing her chicks represents Susana, Ana, and José, as well as the concept of sustaining and innovating a family business.
Sustainability for planet and people
The lounge at SB Winemaker’s House & Spa Suites. Photo: Hannah D. Cooper
Ana talked me through the robust waste management regime, drip irrigation system, and use of bioethanol for energy that earned SB Winemaker’s House Silver Certification from Argentina’s Hoteles Más Verdes. Down the road in Agrelo, Susana Balbo Wines touts its own green credentials including solar power and organic grapes.
But, like Ana says, “sustainability is not only the environment. There are three spheres: environmental, social, and economical.” Perhaps it’s the influence of the family business and the motion of creating a future for Ana’s three children – Susana’s grandchildren – that means sustainability initiatives at the hotel and winery are people-focused.
Susana talks about sustainability in relation to her clients and employees. She travels frequently, fostering relationships with her overseas markets and considers those employed at the winery and hotel her “most important assets: without them we’re nothing.” This is second-nature to Ana who has implemented such thoughtful initiatives as weekly doctor visits to the winery and monthly care hampers for entry-level staff.
Ana and Flavia Amad, the Michelin-recommended Executive Chef at La Vida and Osadía de Crear, create spaces for female chefs to grow through winery pop-up events. Susana opened the door for women to pursue their ambitions and she and Ana continue to hold it open by sustaining female entrepreneurship in Argentina. The winery and hotel see little turnover as staff are invested in the business model. While touring the bodega, my guide shared how she’d leapt at the chance to fill a vacancy working for the country’s first female winemaker.
Photo courtesy SB Winemaker’s House & Spa Suites
On an economic note, profits from the low-alcohol Susana Balbo Crios Sustentia line are donated to the Argentine organizations Fundavita (supporting families affected by cancer) and TECHO (sustainable housing and community infrastructure).
Susana and Ana travel frequently for work and continuously seek inspiration for their businesses. However, the focus is always on Mendoza and Argentina. “We have global minds but our dream is local: we want to give back to our country,” says Ana. Susana Balbo Unique Stays is a family business where employees and guests are invited into the fold. Just as Susana Balbo Wines is committed to premium blends, the first accommodation foray by Susana Balbo and Ana Lovaglio Balbo is all about transcendence.
What’s next? A second hospitality venture, the SB Mountain Lodge Eco Lodge & Spa, is underway. Guests will be able to split their stay between SB Winemaker’s House & Spa Suites in Luján de Cuyo and the Valle de Uco.
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