The world’s most influential women in wine

🇦🇷 Argentina: Susana Balbo

Known by many as the “Evita of wine”, Susana Balbo is the most famous female winemaker in Argentina. After 20 years of producing wine for other people as a consultant, in 1999 Balbo founded Dominio del Plata in Luján de Cuyo. Her vines are planted with Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Torrontés, from which she makes a beguiling barrel-fermented expression.

Selling the wines under her own name, Balbo also has a line of fruit forward second wines, Crios de Susana, which are designed to be drunk young. She lives in Mendoza with her family.

In 2015 she stood as a candidate for the centre-right party Propuesta Republicana (PRO) in Argentina’s national election with a pledge to tackle the “lies” that have cast the country’s wine industry into “huge crisis”. She has held the post of President of Wines of Argentina three times.