SUSANA BALBO
“The creation of my wines at Susana Balbo Wines is to me the maximum achievement as a winemaker, product of all my efforts and many years of hard work. I could say that the winery is like my third child, a dream come true.” Susana.
AN EXTRAORDINARY PERSONALITY
Born into a traditional family, Susana reneged of her fate since she was young by applying to study nuclear physics in Bariloche. Being this a very unconventional choice for the time, her parents refused to let her leave Mendoza. From that point, Susana decided to follow the family business (viticulture) professionally, thus challenging the contemporary social beliefs, because at that time no women had graduated as winemaker.
AN EXCEPTIONAL CAREER
In 1981 Susana received her degree in enology, and became the first woman in Argentina to do so. Her career started in Cafayate, Salta province at Michel Torino winery where she was in charge of developing and stylizing the Torrontes varietal. Afterwards she worked at many well-regarded wineries such as Martins and Catena Zapata.
In 2012, she was recognized as one of the "Most influental women wine-makers" by The Drink Business magazine. Later, in 2015, she was awarded by the same magazine as "Woman of the year". Recently in 2018, the magazine recognized her again by including her in the list of "The 10 most influental women in the wine world".
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE
Throughout her career as a winemaker, Susana had the opportunity of working internationally. She was the first Argentinean woman hired as a consultant to wineries worldwide: Spain, Chile, Italy, Brazil, Australia, and California. This experience allowed her to always be ahead of market trends and wine styles.
HIGHLIGHT OF A LIFETIME: SBW SUCCESS
Susana’s life reached its peak in 1999 with the birth of Susana Balbo Wines. She was able to achieve her lifelong dream: to have her own winery and to create her own wines.
HISTORY
In 1999, with almost two decades dedicating her talent to national and international companies in the wine business working as a consultant, Susana Balbo decided to make her dream of having a winery of her own come true and that was the moment Susana Balbo Wines put down roots in the heart of Luján de Cuyo Mendoza. After more than ten years of steady growth in foreign markets, another one of her dreams was fulfilled: her children, José, winemaker graduated from UC Davis (California) and Ana, Bachelor of Business Administration from University San Andrés (Buenos Aires) decided to go on with the family tradition and join Susana Balbo Wines team.
During the last years, Susana and her team have been working tirelessly on meeting the international highest quality standards and have showed their commitment to some of the major issues of the 21st century: food safety, environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility.
