While I understand the wines of Argentina and Chile, I have little knowledge of those from Brazil. Can anyone give me some opinions / recommendations please ? Thanks a lot.

Brazilians are not noted for making good wine but they are noted for making other things good. Don't bother yourself with this one, if you want to go nacional while in Brasil stick to the beer or cachaca. I like wine myself and I eat in a lot of Italian restaurants when I am in Rio and for the most part the good restaurants have a full wine list I usually go for the Italian wines which I prefer. What I usually see Brazilians do is before dinner have a caiparinha or some cachaca with fruit juice other than limes before dinner and during dinner they drink beer because its hot and because its cheaper. Even me sometimes I find it is too hot to drink my favorite red wines.

I suspect it will not be too hot in August when we will be there. In our travels we visit many wineries and regions and hence I always like to find out about what is local even if the industry is just emerging. It sounds like the Brazilians may prefer to import wine from Europe and the US before favouring other South American wine products. There are of course some great wines now from both Chile and Argentina. I am thinking that maybe we should also visit the Mendosa area of Argentina where there has been a lot of progress in wine making and what appears to be great scenery.

Hmmm - I understand we get a bottle of Brazilian champagne in our room - I wonder what that's like? Similarly I was offered a bottle of method champenoise from India one day and it was actually quite drinkable and not overly sweet.

There is a Brazilian version of Moet Chandon.

Hi the Brazilian Moet &Chandon is good. Better still the Argentinean version of same brand, for wines try the Argentinean and Chilean, Also recently there are several decent Uruguayan wines who have won many prices in Europe.
In Brazil you must try the caiparinha they make this popular cocktail like no one in the world.
It has cachaca, a local strong licor, a special kind of lemon, .... but it is the way they macerate the lemon with a lot of Brazilian know how and patiente that makes it delicious and special.
Anyway you will be delighted, I am sure, with the Brazilian cuisine, both the local and the way they serve the Portuguese, French and Italian cuisine. Brazilian are wonderful hosts and restaurants are very good.
good luck.

Every time I land in Rio I hit the duty free shop that is right next to where the luggage arrives, while the luggage is coming down I am shopping. I enjoy champagne and other liquors in my room while I am in Rio, they always have French champagne on sale, the last time I picked up 4 bottles of Moet Chandon for about $30 a bottle. When I got into town I wanted to check out the prices to see if I could get a better price. They sell it in supermarkets and it was about $50 a bottle, guess they tack on some tax.

What has emerged for me in my research is that Uruguay appears to be making a great deal of progress in winemaking.