THE ARGENTINE VINES 87 



without any harm. It thus requires a relatively small 

 supplement of manual labour, and does not necessitate 

 seasonal migrations. The length of the harvest, more- 

 over, facilitates the trade in grapes, which is one of the 

 special features of the Argentine vine-industry. 



The climate is not so suitable for making wine as 

 it is for growing vines. The temperature is high at 

 the time of the harvest, and it retards fermentation 

 in the cellars. The grapes have too much sugar and 

 too little acid for the transformation of the must to 

 proceed of itself. Hence it is necessary to have an 

 expensive equipment, improved cellars, and skilled 

 workers. This industrial organization is beyond the 

 reach of the small cultivators. The cultivation of the 

 vine and the making of wine are, therefore, not always 

 associated. They are taken up by two different classes 

 of the population. Tucuman has its caneros and 

 factories, and Mendoza, by a division of labour which 

 seems to the European visitor as strange as the climate 

 which partly explains it, has its vine-growers (vinateros) 

 and its manufactures (bodegueros). 1 



Each of these two classes has had its share in the 

 common work. The vinatores have created the vine- 

 yard. The creole vine, imported into Peru from the 

 Canaries and spreading over the whole of the southern 

 Andes, yields great quantities of a sugary, but rough 

 fruit, which does not lend itself to imitating the wines 

 of Europe. At Mendoza it has almost entirely dis- 

 appeared, though it survives at San Juan. It is grown 

 on trellis-work, wooden frames resting on forked 

 branches of algarroba ; though sometimes the strong 

 stems rise without support to a height of about six 

 feet and are crowned with shoots and leaves. The 

 new vine has been grown from French cuttings. While 



1 While the cultivation of the cane has, for the most part, become 

 dependent upon the sugar industry, which represents large capital, 

 wine-making is, on the contrary, usually regarded as merely an annex 

 of wine-growing. 



