Argentinian Wine

Last week I wrote about Chilean wine and neglected their friendly wine-growing neighbor Argentina. Argentina started producing wines in the Mendoza and San Juan areas for domestic consumption but similarly to Chile experienced real growth in the latter half of the twentieth century, and decided to expand their markets beyond domestic consumption. As the North Atlantic people looked to leave behind the passé wines of Australia and South Africa, Argentina had a wine surplus because domestic wine consumption fell from 70 liters a year in the 1970s to presently 41 liters a year. Thus, Argentina continued to produce wine from their 350,000 hectares of grape vine, and have successfully filled foreign markets with their surpluses. However, with a struggling economy and lackluster wine production methods, the Argentines needed to adapt new methods, and employ new technology in order to remain competitive with a good product. Fortunately for Argentina, Italy and France have invested heavily in wine production infrastructure, ignoring Argentine economic distress, and wine production has become a solid industry in a difficult economy.