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HISTORY
Using
irrigation channels derived from the Mendoza river and following
the Huarpes agricultural tradition, the development of
the vines, the fruit orchards and pastures. The isolation from
its political centre, for several months each year, led the
people of Mendoza to try and develop a way to the coast.
Consequently,
its products began to be carried, by carts and mules troops, to
Buenos Aires, Paraguay and up to High Peru Viceroyship. Mendoza soon became
a major commercial centre and the cities along the way, as well
as the destination ones, began to tax their trade, which in many
occasions made it necessary to rely on the Crown to go against
the constant abuses. The city of Buenos Aires found in the taxes
on wine one of its main income, using them to build the original
cathedral, the fort and the prison.
Spain had tried in vain to stop the expansion of the fledgling
wine economy through various Royal orders imposing the
eradication of vineyards in Chile, Peru and Cuyo, claiming that
they were competitors to the wines from the Peninsula. However,
it was the opening of the port of Buenos Aires in 1809, which
began with a real economic conflict with Cuyo, allowing the
entry of European wines, beginning a long dispute between
protectionism and free imports, in which Mendoza was the main
participant.
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In these
remote and arid lands, Don Jose de San Martin decides to uphold
the liberating company. While he organized the army and promoted
the Declaration of Independence, he had trees planted, opened
schools, built canals, spread the use of vaccines and succeeded
in the elimination of extraordinary duties on the fruits of the
province.
The return from the exile of Sarmiento coincides
with a new development of the ancient winemaking industry. It
was now enhanced by European strains brought by Pouget, a French
expert who lived in Chile due to political reasons, and who came
to Mendoza bringing techniques and vegetal varieties. This wine
industry based on the European methods would then be continued
by Benegas.
In 1861, a historic event marked the Province. At night, the
ground shuddered and an earthquake completely destroyed the city,
killing a significant portion of its population and most of its
leaders.
The triumphal entry of the Andean Railroad, the impetus of the
Maipú and Paraguay locomotives, on April 7, 1885, established
another moment of hope in its history.
The subsequent arrival of many Spanish and Italian immigrants who brought their winemaking traditions, both to Cuyo in order to produce wines, and to the Northeastern region for consuming it, has fomented the beginning of a stage in the wine economy of Argentina, where the big volumes produced locally, were mixed with adulterated wine in Buenos Aires.
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