Spatial Change in South American Viticulture (original) (raw)

At least since the arrival of the Spanish to South America, grapes have been grown to varying degrees of success throughout the temperate perimeter of the continent. From Buenos Aires to coastal Peru, bodegas (wineries) have been producing wine since the sixteenth century. Today, the wine industries in Chile and Argentina reflect a long process of trial and error and on-going efforts to extract wealth from natural landscapes that seem to otherwise lack conditions conducive to production of other commodities. Today's global wine industry is premised upon the production of uniquely crafted and carefully constructed wines with a mélange of flavors and aromas captured from a location possessing a unique set of geological, hydrological, meteorological and climatological conditions (terroir). Moreover, grape varietals appropriate for each geographic setting must be carefully selected. Oenological expertise determines the capacity of vintners to understand all that influences the creation of the product and South American wine production has only recently achieved world-class status. The histories of wine production in these two states are significantly different. Of course, their locations on opposite sides of the Andes dictate distinctly different hydro-meteorological and ecological settings for human land uses. Although wine-growing regions in Argentina and Chile are similarly arid, similarly dependent upon orographically produced water supplies, and receive similar duration and intensity of sunlight, that is about where their similarity ends in terms of physical setting. Geology, relief, thermal regimes and other natural factors range widely from northern to southern appellations in both countries. Within these different geophysical settings native and immigrant winemakers developed methods to discover and exploit the best terroirs. More than four hundred years of dynamic socio-cultural, technological and economic contexts produced different outcomes for different times. Today's Argentinean and Chilean wines are very different in types and styles and have developed along very different paths. These paths are comprised of several factors that influence and dictate choices and this will be our focus. The goal of our study is to understand the factors that influence and dictate choices about the where, the what, and the how of wine production today in Argentina and Chile and the implications for these factors for the coming decades in the face of global economic and environmental changes.