While the viñatores were multiplying vineyards, the bodegueros were transforming the methods of making wine. The weakness of imperfectly fermented wines, which turn sour and evaporate quickly, was all the worse for the growers of the colonial period because transport was slow, and there was no protection against the sun, which cooked the algarroba casks or the leather bottles on the backs of the mules. The vineyard-owners often preferred to distil their wine and export brandy, flavoured with aniseed, to the Andean tablelands or the coast. The climate and the risks of transport had brought into existence an astonishing variety of methods of treating the must. Sometimes it was concentrated by boiling until it became a thick syrup (arrope), something like, apparently, the thick wines of the Mediterranean in former times. At other times the must was cooked without thickening it, to prevent immediate fermentation, as is done with the chicha in Chile to-day; or sour wines were mixed with boiled must and ashes of the shoots, which masked the acidity.
These traditions are now lost, but it is curious to see the bodegueros still endeavouring to meet the taste of the creole population of the north-west, which has retained the preference for sweet and fruity wines. San Juan, which caters to these customers, manufactures mistelas—fresh boiled must with an addition of alcohol—which are mixed with mature wines in order the imitate the imperfect fermentation of earlier days. Perhaps there is no part of the world where the art of wine-making has been pushed so far as in the bodegas of Mendoza. The correction of the must, and the analysis and treatment of diseased wines, follow the most modern of methods. The bodegas produce a very steady wine, which is guaranteed by their trade marks. The wine of the Mendoza type, which they endeavour to produce, is a strong red wine, of heavy colour, with twelve or thirteen per cent. of alcohol. It may euphemistically be called a blended wine, but is in reality diluted wine. Argentina does not produce very light wines, and has no use for diluted wine.
The number of wine-making cellars in 1913 was 997 at Mendoza and 336 at San Juan. But they differ very much from each other in size. Most of them have only a small equipment and modest capital. Some, on the other hand, are large enterprizes which could produce enough to supply a city: vast constructions of brick or adobe, with light roofs as a precaution against earthquakes.
The owners of the cellars almost always have their own vineyards, but they also buy the harvests of cultivators who have not cellars. In 1908 it was calculated that 140,000 tons of grapes were sent to the press by the owners and 175,000 tons bought by the bodegueros.[40]
The conflicts of the interests of the viñateros and the bodegueros are the very woof of life at Mendoza. The price of grapes is infinitely more variable than that of wine, and the viñatero who has no cellar is at the mercy of the bodeguero. If he does not want to see his harvest go to waste, he has to accept unconditionally the price that is offered him. The bodeguero has, moreover, the advantage of disposing of the grapes grown on his own estates. If the circumstances do not encourage him to produce all he can, he sends to the press merely his own harvest and will not buy any other. Thus the whole burden of commercial crises falls upon the vineyard with no cellar.
The prices paid for the grapes differ a little for different parts of the vineyard, but the variation is more due to the number of bodegas in the district and their capacity than to the quality of the grapes. Transport of the grapes to a great distance is very expensive. In exceptional times grapes have been brought from San Rafaël to the Mendoza cellars, but each bodega gets its supply as far as possible from its own district. At San Juan the capacity of the cellars is proportionately less than at Mendoza, and the bodegueros have imposed very hard conditions on the growers. The price fixed in the purchase-contract does not of itself give a complete idea of the benefits which the bodeguero enjoys. The grapes are purchased by weight, but the bodeguero reserves the right to say at what date they are to be delivered. He begins to harvest his own vines when the fruit is scarcely ripe, but he puts back the harvesting of the grapes he buys as far as possible, even to April or May. These grapes exposed on the plant to the heat of the sun, become overripe; they gain in sugar and lose in weight. They make vineswines with a higher percentage of alcohol, and with these he can correct the lighter wines made during the preceding weeks. Finally, the bodeguero does not advance money to the viñatero, as the manufacturer does to the cañero in the sugar industry.
The only safeguard of the vine-growers is the lack of understanding between the bodegueros and the competition between them. Although there are conventions amongst the bodegueros which lay down officially, before the vintage, the basis of all transactions, they are not respected except in so far as they serve a man's interest. If it is expected that the wine will easily be sold, and that grapes will be short, buyers are abundant, and contracts are signed before the fruit appears. It is a sort of gamble, as in the case of wheat and cotton. Bulls and bears struggle for the market. If the bulls win, the viñateros grow rich.[41]
When we compare the diagrams which show the production of wine and sugar in Argentina during the last thirty years, we see that they clearly illustrate the condition of dependence of the vineyard industry and the sugar industry as regrads regards the home market. The prosperity of the region of the Pampas, especially during the years before 1914, is reflected at Mendoza and Tucumán. The expansive movement of the estates is similarly bound up with the construction of railways to connect them with the coast. Industry, on a large scale, began at Tucumán in 1876: that is to say, at the opening of the Central Córdoba line. The area planted with cane rose from 2,200 hectares in 1876 to 14,800 in 1886. The production of sugar was trebled in four years, from 1876 to 1880. But the Central Córdoba was a narrow-gauge line, expensive to use and necessitating a transfer of goods at Córdoba. In 1891 the broad-gauge line from Buenos Aires to Rosario was extended to Tucumán; and in 1892 the narrow-gauge line from Rosario to Santa Fé, San Cristobal, and Tucumán was also brought into use. The following years were marked by rapid advances of the sugar industry. From 1891 to 1895 the area planted with canes rose from 14,200 to 40,700 hectares, and the manufacture of sugar from 31,000 to 135,000 tons. At Mendoza, also, the development of the vineyards dates from the completion of the San Luis Railway in 1885. Plantations were at once started, and three years later they came into touch. In 1887, the railway carried 27,000 hectolitres of wine from Mendoza to the coast; in 1890-91 it carried 268,000 hectolitres. Production had increased tenfold in that short space of time.
As the home-production of wine and sugar increased, the imports from abroad fell. As early as 1885 Tucumán was able to meet the home demand for raw sugar, and refined only was imported. In 1888, a refinery was erected at Rosario to deal with Argentine sugar which came by rail, and foreign sugar which came up the river. Import ceased at this date, or there have since only been occasional years of import, to meet a scarcity. The imports of ordinary foreign wines continued to increase until 1890 (800,000 hectolitres), or as long as the wine produced at Mendoza did not suffice to meet the demand. They have steadily declined since that date (350,000 hectolitres in 1913), and are now only seven per cent. of the national production. We should add that, even in regard to ordinary wines, the Mendoza and the imported wine are not strictly comparable, that the competition between them is not simply a matter of price, and that some customers continue to prefer foreign wine.
