Who Grows the Grapes? The Changing Relationship of Quality in Argentine Wine Production

Abstract

Argentine wine has transitioned from quantity to quality production. Stakeholders complain that independent vintners fail to adapt to the new technologies. Taking a social-constructivist perspective, this paper questions the general assumption that the difference between the systems is merely a technological matter. In modern production winemakers have become central, with professional agronomists translating their demands to the vineyard. Winery managers, marketers, traders, consultants and critics have also become relevant to defining best vineyard practices. The transition to quality involves an altogether new approach, which results from new relationships between consumers and producers in a socio-technical network.

Notes

The National Institute for Agricultural Technologies (INTA) in Mendoza led the project on viticulture for the national campaign for rural reform (Cambio Rural) in the 1990s. The public-private sector organization COVIAR has led several initiatives since its inception in 2002.

Though this was the norm, various large wineries owned considerable vineyard property, as was the case of Arizu with Villa Atuel.

The vintners' association of Mendoza (AVM) considers plots smaller than 8 hectares as sub-marginal. Also see INV (2007); Neiman and Blanco (2005).

Sources for these claims: interviews and IERAL (2005); Los Andes (2006a, 2006b).

Because the interest here is in the relationship between wineries and grape producers, other distinctions that may be made between or within these groups are deemed irrelevant at this point.

This is a common definition in modern winemaking, as found in the professional literature. See for example, Jackson and Lombard (1993).

These elements are believed to influence not only the plant's vigor, the number of grapes produced, the intensity of the juice and other factors of primary interest to viticulture, but also the specific kind of flavors that will be found in the grape—and thus the wine (Downey et al., 2006)

For example, one of the most recognized experts at INTA, Carlos Catania, holds a master's degree in both agronomy and enology and has headed research ‘from the vine to the bottle’ for decades. Angel Mendoza, the ground-breaking enologist who worked at Trapiche between 1978 and 2003, also had training in agronomy and took an integrated approach.

The enological faculty Don Bosco claims to dedicate more time to viticulture than they used to, while at the Agronomical faculty winemaking is taken more seriously: while they always elaborated and sold wine, only now have they taken to tasting their own products. Source: interviews at respective institutes and with former students.

Where some years ago managers from different fields were still welcomed to winery management, people are now expected to be (former) winemakers themselves. Another witness to this trend is the new wine MBA at Maza University.

Most experts agree that manual labor best protects the phenolic compounds. Were the winemaker the person to decide on the artifacts and methods used for harvesting, he might suggest a manual method of the utmost care (for example, using scissors and small plastic crates) for all of his wines. The winery agronomist has different considerations when concerned with the harvest. He not only wants to deliver whole and high quality grapes according to the winemaker's standards, but he also needs to coordinate between many vineyards with limited means and wants everything harvested before grapes are over-ripe, and more importantly, before rain or hail strike. This might plea for the use of mechanical harvesters. See Maclaine Pont and Thomas (2008).

For more an intermediaries, see Callon, 1991. For more on innovation as an interactive process, see Lundvall, 1988.

Bijker calls this a technological frame. The concept describes the relationships that are established between relevant social groups and artifacts through the closure and stabilization process. It explains how certain individuals stick together around certain artifacts, how the relevant social groups structure these artifacts, and also how an artifact's physical form structures such interactions in a specific way. Technological frames are built from the interactions between the ‘artifact-in-the-making’ and the actors around it and include: goals, key problems, problem-solving strategies, requirements to be met by problem solutions, current theories, tacit knowledge, procedures, methods, criteria, users' practices, perceived (substitution) functions, exemplary artifacts and all the artifacts that belong to the maintenance of the ‘paradigms’ of the relevant social groups (Bijker, 1995).