88 TUCUMAN AND MENDOZA 



the Creole vines look like orchards, the French vines 

 are grown in rows of iron wire. 



The plantations were first made by Creole workmen, 

 who were paid by the day. Afterwards, as immigration 

 from Europe increased, long-term contracts came into 

 vogue, in virtue of which the colonist received the 

 bare land and undertook to have it planted with vines 

 at the end of three, four, or five years. The owner 

 supplied the material, and at the end of the contract 

 the colonist received a few centavos for each vine, or 

 sold the whole or part of the first harvest. On account 

 of these contracts there were always a great many 

 foreigners in the districts where vineyards were in course 

 of formation. The proportion is now less at Mendoza 

 than at San Rafael, where colonization is more recent. 

 Whenever they could, the owners left to the colonists, 

 not only the business of planting the vines, but the 

 upkeep of adult vineyards. In those cases the colonist 

 receives a fixed sum per hectare (100 piastres, for 

 instance), and has to dig, prune, irrigate, etc. A large 

 number of these agricultural workers and small con- 

 tractors have saved a small capital, and purchased 

 land of their own. This they have planted, and they 

 thus form a new class of working owners. 



While the vinatores 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 table- 

 lands or the coast. The climate and the risks of trans- 

 port 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 



