Vinodata

History of the Wines of Chile

History of the Wines of Chile

Ramón A. Rada M.

Chile is a privileged country for the production of outstanding quality grapes, which could eventually result in the growing of wines of excellence as well. It’s exceptional climatic, agricultural and phytosanitary conditions, which also favour most other agricultural products of the country, are a gift and blessing from nature. Light and sunshine exposure in Chile compare favourably to those of other fruit growing regions of the world. The solar radiation conditions, both quantitative and qualitative, have been demonstrated by numerous studies, amongst them those which resulted in the establishment in the country of multinational astronomical observatories, due to its unique conditions, especially to the number of clear days within a year and a clean and dry atmosphere. Such light conditions favour photosynthesis in plants more efficiently and effectively than in other agricultural production areas, which provides a clear advantage for the production of quality grapes for winegrowing. This in turn facilitates the development of elements that are beneficial to human health in noteworthy proportions. As for instance, a study unfold by the University of Glasgow (United Kingdom, 2001) demonstrated this and lead to British physicians prescribing certain Chilean wines to counter some cardiovascular problems.

Furthermore, the mild night-time breezes blow from the Andean Mountain Range in the East towards the Pacific Ocean to the West, while during the daytime they blow from the Ocean towards the Andes, working their way up streams and rivers and refreshing the fields. This results in a beneficial change of temperatures from night to daytime, and an optimal thermal range, with high temperatures during the day and low ones at night. From this, grapes develop a higher concentration of flavours and aromas than those produced in areas with a lesser thermal range. Wine growing areas situated in the Andean slopes, where night time temperatures tend to be lower due to their nearness to the cold wind’s origin, may have a higher thermal range, exceeding 20°C (36°F). Therefore, the diversity of climates and the enormous reserve of clear unpolluted water from the Andes range, as well as the entire ecosystem, favour the successful growing of the Vitis vinifera, and make this country a paradise for winegrowing and the production of fine wines.

Conquerors, Missionaries and wine

In Christopher Columbus initial navigation trip, at the service of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand of Castile and Aragon, he departed with the caravels La Pinta and La Niña and the nao Santa María on August 3, 1492 from the fluvial port of Palos de la Frontera. The little fleet took course due south along the west coast of Africa to firstly touch port in the bay of San Sebastián de la Gomera, considered the best protected bay of all the Canary Islands, for repairs and supply, mainly of fresh water, and from there he would take advantage of the trade winds on his journey to what would be later called America. When Columbus sailed from the island of La Gomera, on September 6, he had stored in the ships cellars wines from the Condado de Huelva (Guadalquivir), from the port where he had originally sailed, possibly fortified wine as those of Jerez de la Frontera, and also from Ribadavia of the Ribeiro region (Galicia), all of them very appreciated wines then, which had been loaded a month before sailing from Palos de la Frontera. Wine was then a mandatory passenger in the navigation trips, especially in those of long distance. Columbus embarked wines for the sustenance of the crew that according to the custom of the time they had to drink “to support the hard life on board“, “half azumbre of wine a day” (a litre), which had to be distributed in “four quarts” throughout the day, and not all at once. It will not be until his second trip, also departing from La Gomera island, that he will ship vine cuttings to produce wine along with several other plant’s cuttings, such as olive tree, orange and lemon trees, sugar cane cuttings, wheat and barley seeds with the intention of recreate their way of life in the new continent. Thus, the Vitis vinifera (vines producing grapes used to produce wines) arrived in America in November 1493 on the island of Santo Domingo, “a few shoots” (unos poquitos sarmientos) according to the writings of Columbus himself.

Before the Columbus discovery trip and following the plans of Enrique el Navegante, King of Portugal, the Portuguese navigators occupied the Azores archipelago, the islands of the Atlantic in front of Portugal, in 1419, as an outpost for navigation taking advantage of the direction of the winds. The volcanic soil and the climate of the island of Madeira lent itself ideally to produce wine, so with the installation of the stately structure the cultivation of the vine began. The first strains, came from Greece, from the island of Crete, by order of Enrique El Navegante himself and throughout the fifteenth century the four most common strains were also planted to produce the famous wine of the island: Sercial, Boal, Verdejo and Malvasia, later, the Tinta Negra Mole was introduced, completing the five main strains of the current Madeira wine. The need to supply the ships that sailed initially bordered the coast of Africa in their way to drove them to India and after that across the Atlantic to the New World would strengthen the positions of the Portuguese in the Madeira Islands, which they named and occupied in 1420, as well as in the Azores archipelago and the Canary Islands, although in the latter they will enter in conflict with the Kingdom of Castile, until by the Treaty of Alcaçovas, the Canarian archipelago would remain in Castilian hands with the condition that the lands discovered to the south of Africa would be for Portugal. The Norman Conquest of the Canary Islands was developed between 1402 and 1496 by Jean de Bethencourt et Gadifer de la Salle under first the auspices of King Henry III of Castile and then by Isabel I of Castile affecting the islands of Lanzarote, El Hierro and Fuerteventura. Upon their arrival, the conquistadors encountered a population in the Bronze Age. The Norman Conquest was followed by the Castilian Conquest, in which Castilian nobles appropriated the first conquered islands and incorporated the island of La Gomera around 1450. The vine, specifically the Listán Prieto variety also known as Palomino negra, which was a varietal old widely cultivated in Castile was introduced in the Canary Islands as well as the Muscatel of Alexandria, who arrived first at Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, between 1402 and 1412 then to La Gomera between 1450 and 1477 and then at the end of the conquest in 1496 at the last island to be conquered, Tenerife. The first vineyard of Tenerife was planted by the Portuguese Fernando de Castro, in the year 1497 and finally John Hill, an Englishman, planted the first vineyard on El Hierro Island in 1526. Thus, from the begining the Canary Islands were incorporated into the Kingdom of Castile, and since there the vines of the varieties Listán Prieto and Muscatel of Alexandria would begin the crossing of the Atlantic with the trade winds to accompany the conquest of their Castilian kingdom in America.

Winegrowing in America began with the Spanish Conquest, stamped with a pronounced missionary seal, ‘by the Cross and the Sword’, but not only for the needs of the priests at the Catholic mass and the intention to prestige their crusade to convert the unbelievers, they were introduced also and mainly because of the replication of the conquistadors way of life and for the initiation of new businesses as well as for sustenance, medical and health reasons, not to mention the growing demand of the Spanish Army due to permanent war of conquest as well as the slave and indigenous labour in the gold and silver mines particularly in Potosí (Alto Peru) and Zacatecas (Mexico) they knew that wine it is also a food which came along with other crops as wheat and olive trees, completing in this way the Mediterranean trilogy: bread, olive oil and wine. Everything indicates that, prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus to America on October 12, 1492; the Vitis vinifera did not exist in the American Continent. It is known with certitude that the introduction of vines was due to grapevine shoots from the Canary Islands, which gave birth to the first vineyards. The first vine stocks brought from those islands were of red grapes vine cuttings of Listán prieto variety called today ‘Negra Peruana’ in Peru, ‘País’ in Chile, ‘Criolla’ in Argentina, and ‘Mission’ in Mexico and in California. These Vitis vinifera vine cuttings, however, although reproduced in the Caribbean islands, they did not prosper there, due to the extreme lack of adaptability of vine stocks to tropical climate, excessive sun, lack of thermal amplitude, abundant fertile soil and excessive natural watering although they would in Mexico, associated with the social and economic system imposed by the Spanish conquest: the “encomienda“.

Their first Vitis vinifera winegrowing successes date back to the year 1524 in Mexico’s cooler and higher lands of over 2000 m.a.s.l. Hernán Cortés who had ran aground his ships on the coast of Mexico in 1519, starting the fight for the land and after conquering Tenochtitlán in August 1521, the conquistadors found wild vines in the soil of Nueva España (Mexico) as Vitis rupestris, Vitis labrusca and Vitis berlandieri. Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano was the main promoter of vine cultivation, ordered to bring from the island of Cuba Vitis vinifera plants, being Nueva España (Mexico) the first continental America site to successfully grow vineyards to produce wines. On March 20, 1524, Hernán Cortés issued a decree ordering the Spanish encomenderos (Spanish lords of the land with a number of natives assigned by royal decree, an encomienda) to plant annually a thousand native and Spanish vines for every hundred indigenous people at their service to achieve a rapid hybridization in the new lands with native vines (Vitis rupestris, Vitis labrusca and Vitis berlandieri) found in Mexico. The first vines were planted in Huejotzingo and around Mexico City. In fact, a few decades later in 1568, Fray Pedro de Espinareda and Francisco Cano explored the area of Patos and the Valle del Pirineo, also called Valle de Parras. The tradition began when Spanish conquistadors left Zacatecas for what is now Coahuila in search of gold, and, in the middle of the desert, they did not found gold, but an oasis with springs of water and a great profusion of wild vines. In 1594 the Jesuits Jerónimo Ramírez, Francisco de Arista and Juan Agustín de Espinosa arrived in the Valle de Parras, motivated by the discovery of wild springs and vines to establish the Mission of Santa María de las Parras and, with the grapes from these native vineyards, they produced the first wine of the region which have been produced since then. In 1597, the governor of Nueva Vizcaya, Diego Fernández de Velasco, delivers the mercy authorized by King Felipe II dated August 19, 1597, with the express purpose of planting vines to produce wine and brandy thus giving formal birth to the Hacienda de San Lorenzo, founded by Lorenzo García in the town of Santa María de las Parras today known as Casa Madero, the oldest winery in America.

Southwest of Mexico, quite far from the capital city, Pedro de Alvarado following the will of the ruler of New Spain, order to build three ships, in 1527, in Iztapa, at the mouth of the Michatoya River on the Pacific coast of Guatemala, a territory under the rule of Hernán Cortés, the naos La Florida, the Espíritu Santo and the Santiago, three of the first ships built in the Pacific coast, designated for the Moluccas islands first expedition led by a cousin of  Hernán Cortés, Álvaro de Saavedra y Cerón, who transfer the small fleet from Iztapa to the Mexican bay of Zihuatanejo, in the state of Guerrero, from where he sailed from on October 31, 1527. Soon after, on the 18th of December 1527, the king of Spain named Pedro de Alvarado as governor of Guatemala and two days later he granted him the coveted military title of Adelantado. This was the beginning of the end of the friendship amongst Alvarado and Cortés. In 1528, by coincidence both were in Seville at the same time, but Cortés ignored Alvarado. (García Añoveros 1987, p. 247).

Upon returning from Castile, Pedro de Alvarado, as governor of Guatemala and Adelantado, by the Emperor Charles V, and subscribing a capitulation offering to try discoveries towards the west of New Spain (Mexico), in places not occupied or granted. Then, he commissioned Sebastián de Belalcázar and Juan Fernández in Nicaragua to build a squadron of eight ships to explore the South Sea and reach the Moluccas islands. Therefore, a shipyard only fifteen leagues distant from the recently founded capital city of Guatemala, Santiago de los Caballeros was founded in the bay of Iztapa. In a short time (1531), carpenters, caulkers and master craftsmen were sent, and supplying the time with expenses he launched into the water a 300-ton galleon named San Cristóbal; two naos the Santa Clara of 170 tons and the Buenaventura of 150 tons, another that made in the Gulf of Chirá, also of 150 tons, a caravel of 80 tons; a 50 ton patache and 2 more medium-sized caravels, the San Pedro and the Santiaguillo. In short, eight ships that equipped with care. Alvarado could have participated to Charles V, in the first of September of 1532 that the fleet was complete. At the beginning of January of 1534, Pedro de Alvarado received the real permit to take to the sea and the expedition departed on January 23 of that year, with Juan Fernández as pilot. However, once ready to sail, he found it more expedient and profitable to take them to Peru, from whose wealth they all became tongues, the Audiencia‘s veto disregarding the requirements against them. He pretended the need to go to the aid of Governor Francisco Pizarro, a relative of Hernán Cortés, although he had not been asked to do so, the will of the people, who really wanted to see the hills of the Andes. Having embarked 500 men, 130 horses, he left towards Peru, stirring with its presence that much more than it was amongst the conquistadors in the struggle for the inca empire. Upon arriving in Quito, on August 1534, in his way to Peru, Diego de Almagro’s proposals convinced him to sell six out of the eight ships of his fleet, including the galleon and the naos, men and supplies, to whom he left the field cleared by 120,000 gold pesos in compensation for the expenses incurred. In this way the maritime transport on the coast of the South Pacific was assured to complete the conquest of Peru and then that of Chile.

These would be the ships that would make possible to transport all kind of goods and all sort of plants including vine shoots, olive tree and lemon and orange tree shoots and wheat seeds as well as animals not only to complete the conquest of Peru initiated by Francisco Pizarro in 1532, but also the supply of the south American coast of the Pacific mainly from Panama, including the support of the conquest of Chile. At the end of the 1530s, in Lima, bread was already produced, but wine was still imported, and it was urgent to test the cultivation of the vines, which was resolved by Hernando de Montenegro who planted the first vines in Peru between 1539 and 1541. According to the findings of the Peruvian historian Guillermo Toro-Lira on testimonies on the foundation of Lima in the Provincial Historical Archive of Valladolid and in the General Archive of the Indies in Seville, Nicolás de Ribera, who was the first mayor of Lima in 1535, “Hernando de Montenegro was the first person to plant a vineyard in this city where the whole kingdom has been ‘swollen’ (expanded to its limits) and that he has planted many plants of the kingdom of Castile.” Likewise, Alonso Martín de Don Benito, also a mayor of Lima in 1551, pointed out that “Hernando de Montenegro was the first to start putting a vineyard in this city (Lima) and planted it and from his house and vineyard this city has been provided, such as Huamanga, Arequipa, Cusco and Chile.” Thus Lima, the capital of Peru, was the cradle of the first wine and the first vineyard in South America, planted between 1539 and 1541 by the Spanish captain Hernando de Montenegro, with the help of the natives who were the only obliged hand labour available and with local agricultural experience, the plantations were consolidated and after a few years of cultivation, the vineyard grew “Montenegro planted the vineyard during that period and then distributed vine shoots to other people in Lima, including at least seven more vineyards” and among them for the Pizarro manor orchard, to whom he also gave some other plants of Castile. At the beginning the vineyard bore little fruit as Bernabé Cobo y Peralta, a Spanish Jesuit missionary and writer, recorded in his Historia de la Fundación de Lima “that the first year he took an abundance of grapes to sell was that of 1551″ and Rodrigo Niño being the executor who priced it in ½ peso gold a pound of grapes, equivalent to 220 maravedíes, a paltry price that forced Hernando de Montenegro to complain to the Royal Court.

After the conquest of Peru by Francisco Pizarro, his partner Diego de Almagro began an exploration voyage to Chile in 1535. In the hazardous journey of the expedition, 10 Spaniards, 50 horses and a few hundred auxiliary Indians corpses were abandoned in the cold and barren landscape of the crossing of the Andes Mountain Range. After the painful march the expeditionary column arrive to Copayapu (Copiapó) and then continued south towards the Aconcagua Valley, but not before losing at the hands of the local Indians another three of his soldiers in a place where today is Los Vilos. Almagro took such a revenge, against the local Indian chiefs, so brutal that it would affect the Spaniards decades later. The territory that Almagro hoped to find full of riches did not meet his expectations and caused him great disappointment, he decided then to send 70 riders and 20 infantry under Gómez de Alvarado to explore the southern part of the territory, the column reached the confluence of the Ñuble and Itata rivers, Gomez de Alvarado and his men confronted the Mapuche for the first time, in Reinohuelén. There, a few decades later, the first Spanish settlers would plant vines that, abandoned to nature, adapted with such an excellence to the territory that gave rise to specific phenotypes that have made the Itata Valley famous. Gómez de Alvarado and his men decided to return to the north avoiding a new confrontation with the Mapuches. Before only difficulties, Diego de Almagro with discouragement and painful impression of the territory decided to return to Peru without leaving record of any kind of intention of settlement.

In spite of the fame that Chile had acquired at the time as a result of the failed expedition of Diego de Almagro, of being a miserable and hostile land, with a very cold climate and without wealth, Pedro de Valdivia thought that the much discredited lands of the south had a great agricultural potential and constituted an opportunity to “Leave fame and memory of me” and not without difficulties and few resources he decided to restart the conquest of Chile. Time would show that his intuition was rightly correct, not only would it prove that the letter he would later write to the then Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, in which he described Chile’s agroclimatic conditions would be endorsed by time, Chile was not only, what Valdivia did not knew then, one of the five Mediterranean climates existing on the planet, but also the one that enjoyed the best solar radiation conditions available to produce the best fruit of several species in a great variety of microclimates. After his departure from Cuzco, several soldiers joined him in the south, in Tarapacá, among them Rodrigo de Araya with sixteen soldiers; also, Rodrigo de Quiroga, Pedro de Cisternas, Juan Bohón [Johann von Bohon], Juan Jufré de Loaiza and Montesa, Jerónimo de Alderete y Mercado, Juan Fernández de Alderete, the religious Rodrigo González de Marmolejo of the order of the Dominicans, Santiago de Azócar Zumeta and Francisco de Villagra Velásquez. Pedro de Valdivia arrived in Chile with a Spanish woman [Inés de Suarez] and 141 soldiers, he brought black slaves himself, and Bartolomé Flores [Bartholomew Blumenthal], like Francisco de Aguirre, Jerónimo de Alderete and Mercado, Pedro Gómez de don Benito, Gonzalo de los Ríos, Juan Negrete, Pedro and Francisco de Villagra. In 1541, Pedro de Valdivia was 44 years old and Francisco de Aguirre, his man of trust, aged 41, while Inés de Suarez, widow and heiress of a Spanish soldier, was 34 years old, who invested in the Valdivia venture. On an Inca settlement, Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago del Nuevo Extremo, in the west of Cerro Huelén, today Santa Lucía. The layout of the city was made by Pedro de Gamboa in the form of checkerboard, dividing into blocks the land within the fluvial island, which were distributed at the same time in four lots for the first neighbours. Once the city was founded, Valdivia assigns to his hosts the newly conquered lands, assigning himself those of Huechuraba, which corresponds to Conchalí and Punta de Renca, on the north side of the river, to the hill of Huechuraba (today Cerro Blanco), delimited by the west with the Camino de Chile (Inca Road) and by the East with the Tierras del Salto which were assigned to Rodrigo de Araya. The limits of the city to the north were the canal of Huechuraba or Flores, where the Tierras del Salto started and in the east the sierra on Cerro San Cristóbal.

To ensure the supply of his expedition and to support the new colony Valdivia had agreed with Giovanni Battista Pastene to take that task in addition to the King Charles V order to explore the south of Chile, given to the Viceroy of Peru who transferred that order to Pastene, in 1543, for which he was awarded the title of General de la Mar del Sur. Thus the General of the South Sea, as the Spaniards called the Pacific Ocean, was by the will of Charles V, the Genoese Giovanni Battista Pastene who had previously arrived on his own ship to Honduras in 1526 and in 1536 he put himself at the service of Francisco Pizarro to support the conquest of Peru, in which he participated actively and almost lost his life. Rewarded for his services he acquired on that occasion and in partnership with Baltasar Diaz, the ship La Concepción performing on board as Master (Merchant Captain) and Pilot, trading between Peru and Panama. Later he put himself to the service of the expedition of Diego de Almagro to Chile with the ships San Pedro and Santiaguillo, all built in the shipyards of Iztapa, by Pedro de Alvarado on the west coast of Guatemala in 1531 and acquired by Diego de Almagro for the purpose mentioned. Appointed as his lieutenant was the maritime logistic support of Pedro de Valdivia with the indicated ships. Probably the transport of the vines shoots reproduced by Hernando de Montenegro in Lima, Peru, and sent first to Rodrigo de Araya (Basque of origin of Arraia-Maeztu, Álava, although born in Casar de Palomero, Cáceres, in Extremadura), Inés de Suarez and others including Francisco de Aguirre and his son-in-law Juan Jufré de Loaiza y Montesa was made on the first trips of the ships in support of the Valdivia expedition, especially taking into account that it was the safest way to transport all kinds of plants and animals from Spain to the new territories and the predominantly agricultural vision of Valdivia on its new destination. In addition, the Emperor Charles V’s order to the Casa de Contratación de Sevilla in 1531 must be taken into account in order to indicate “that, from now on, all the masters who go to our Indies, who each carry on their ship the amount that they seem to them of plants of vineyard and olive trees so that none pass without carrying some amount“.

On September 11, 1541, natives from Aconcagua, Santiago, and Cachapoal united under the single command of toqui Michimalonco attacked and burned the recently founded city of Santiago. The city was reduced to ruins and although reconstruction work began, the situation was quite difficult, since there was also a lack of food and provisions. In December of 1541, Pedro de Valdivia sent Alonso Monroy and Pedro de Miranda i Bidela to Peru accompanied by four men, in search of reinforcements and supplies. The relief arrived two years later, in the ship Santiaguillo. It had been chartered in Peru by the wealthy merchant Lucas Martínez Vegaso, brother of Francisco, a friend of Pedro de Valdivia, dispatching items of clothing, weapons and supplies that he needed to recover the life of the nascent colony. It came under Captain Diego García de Villalón, cast anchor in the bay of Valparaiso in September 1543. In addition, brought the first shipment of wine, a chronicler said: “Such had been the shortage that had not been said for four months for lack of wine.” In December of the same year (1543) enter Santiago, Alonso de Monroy and Pedro de Miranda i Bidela back with 70 riders who had recruited in Peru, and have been back by land from Arequipa. There is not a record about if they carried or not additional goods such as vine or olive tree cuttings, or others likewise in their cargo.

The landfall of the ship Santiaguillo in the bay of Quintil, Valparaíso today, in September 1543 is a firm candidate to be assigned as the time of arrival in Chile of the first vines, taking into account that Hernando de Montenegro planted the first vines in Lima between 1539 and 1541, so he was able to reproduce cuttings of vines to be sent to Chile in 1542 or 1543. Additionally, the supply of vine shoots from the Canary Islands through Panama was probably relatively stable following the Emperor orders. In June of 1544, Giovanni Battista Pastene then better known as Juan Bautista Pastene by the castellanization of his name, arrived at the port of Valparaíso in his own ship San Pedro, sent by the governor Cristóbal Vaca de Castro with the purpose of coordinating with Pedro de Valdivia the exploration of the coast to the Strait of Magellan in order to follow the Emperor Charles V’s order. Within a year of the arrival of the Santiaguillo in 1543, Pastene arrived, also with supplies of all kinds for the nascent colony and to prepare his trip to the south, which would begin in September. It is not possible to rule out that within the cargo coming from Peru had have come both wine for consumption and vine cuttings to plant vineyards.

During the first years of the colony, in almost all the lots of Santiago and the surrounding farms, there were grape vineyards and wine was produced for personal consumption. Given the vision of the agricultural potential that Pedro de Valdivia saw in Chile, his expedition records having had seeds and animals, however, given the limited resources with which the expedition was organized, its quantity was probably not abundant, although there is no record on this occasion of vines. Everything indicates that the first vines arrived in Chile in the small quantities carried by the conquerors themselves who had been able to obtain them from the Canary Islands through Panama, if the King’s orders of 1531 were fulfilled, to the Casa de Contratación de Sevilla that each ship that sailed from Spain should have cuttings of vines for wine and olive trees, or those first produced in Peru, insufficient to develop major ventures. Only the encomienda system, using indigenous labor additional to that of the few black slaves and the yanaconas (indigenous servants) that the conquerors had brought along from Peru, would allow the development of extensive plantations, among which the first were corn and wheat and then the vineyards for the production of wines. The records suggest that the vines began arriving in Chile from 1543 or 1544 in quantities that allowed vineyards to be planted and sent by Hernando de Montenegro who had already established the nursery that produced them in Lima.

The city initially called Villanueva de la Serena was founded by order of Pedro de Valdivia three years after having founded Santiago del Nuevo Extremo and it was from there that Pedro de Valdivia sent Juan Bohon [Johann von Bohon] with 30 horsemen towards the north, in September of 1544, to found a city between Santiago and the Copiapó Valley and thus defend this road considered vital for the supply from Peru and complementary link to the sea travels.

The historical sequence of events during the conquest of Chile slowly released energies from the settlers for the planting of the main plant species so that Mediterranean cereal, vegetable and fruit crops such as citrus, wheat, olives and vines were converted in the main concern of the conquerors and preferential business along with the search for precious and semiprecious metals, gold, silver and copper. In this way it can be estimated that several plants were first planted, including vines in the vicinity of Santiago and then north and south. According to the Chilean Wine Foundation Act of the General Archive of the Indies, created by Carlos III in 1785 and discovered by José Toribio Medina, the first to plant vines in Chile was Rodrigo de Araya who put a vineyard in his farm in El Salto, which he received as a “merced de tierra” on October 10, 1545 and he also built the first mill in Chile, in 1548, on the southeast slope of Cerro Huelén, now Santa Lucía, next to Bartolomé Flores (Bartholomeus Blumenthal, one of the first two Germans, along with Johann von Bohon, to reach Chile with Valdivia) who erected the second mill. “There are vineyards and nowhere in the Indies has such good grapes been given as in this land, wine is made very good“. “The first man who did it was a neighbour who calls himself Rodrigo de Araya, and likewise was the first to bring wheat to this earth.”

On January 12, 1544 Pedro de Valdivia distributed the Indians available in the conquered region among sixty encomenderos. Thus, he inaugurated the system of encomiendas in Chile, but in view of the scarce endowment of some of these encomiendas, he determined, in July 1546, a new distribution. In the first distribution of encomiendas in 1544, he considered Francisco de Aguirre, Bartolomé Flores, Inés de Suarez, Rodrigo de Araya, Diego García de Cáceres, Pedro de Miranda and Bidela, Juan Jofré de Loaíza y Montesa, and Alonso de Monroy amongst others. These first encomenderos began the exploitation of several crops oriented to production on a larger scale than that of the lots in Santiago, among them the first vineyards were planted by Rodrigo de Araya in his “merced de tierra” of El Salto, Pedro de Miranda i Bidela in his encomienda of Cachapoal, then Diego García de Cáceres, and Juan Jofré de Loaiza y Montesa on lands in Ñuñoa. The historical records do not discriminate between the dates of delivery of lands in charge and the dates of the plantations, nor those of the production of wines and it is very unlikely that any of the conquerors have planted any vine for wines, it is likely that they have done it their servants, black slaves or Indians of encomienda as it was in Peru, in Alto Peru (Bolivia) and before in New Spain (Mexico).

Soon Pedro de Valdivia realized that the only way to accumulate wealth in the new colony was by introducing the business model already predominant in the Spanish empire: the encomienda system that gathered the necessary elements to obtain the submission of the indigenous people and their dedication to the transfer of value towards its conquerors. As many times in history, the human exploitation systems were making up under a socially acceptable concept, in this case a system where the indigenous people were converted to a soft slavery under the name of encomienda. The system be given a name other than that of enslavement of the Indians, it was given the name of encomienda. The King, it was said, entrusts (encomienda) his Indians (it is supposed that the Indians conquered were property of the King) to the good servants of the Crown, to place them under their protection and the protection of the latter, so that they may be treated with gentleness and justice. The encomenderos (trustees) had to take care of converting the Indians to Christianity and attending to the salvation of their souls. If the Indians refuses to accept the Cross as their new religion, they would be submitted by the Sword. In practice, the encomienda (entrusts) system was the basis of the harshest and cruel despotism. The Indians were turned into beasts of burden to transport the conquerors cargo in their military expeditions, they were reduced to the most painful jobs in which they died by hundreds, they were chained so that they did not escape, and they were even marked in the face, with red-hot irons as cattle, to recognize them anywhere. The Spaniards replicated in a new manner the European custom of accumulation of wealth which embodied religious conversion, submission and a life of work for the benefit of the conqueror. The main businesses it will be the mining of gold, silver and copper and in agriculture the cultivation of wheat, barley, maize (which the Spaniards had discovered in America and the yanakonas knew how to cultivate it) and vineyards to produce wine as well as sugar cane fields and cattle herding.

It was Juan Bohon (Johann von Bohon, from German origin), founder of La Serena in 1544, who probably first introduced vines in the Elqui valley; but it was Francisco de Aguirre, when rebuilding La Serena in 1549, who definitively established the first vineyards in the transversal valleys which descend from the Andes mountain range to the Pacific Ocean. The first grape harvest took place two years later, in 1551, probably from vines planted before him, under the local rule of Juan Bohon, which made Francisco de Aguirre one of the forerunners of winegrowers in Chile, along with Rodrigo de Araya. Francisco de Aguirre thus received from the King of Spain the Elqui valley estate and lands beyond, even past the Andean mountain range towards the East, their limits reaching as far as the city of San Juan in Argentina. He fled to that city from the persecution of the Episcopal Inquisition established early after colonisation began in Peru. Francisco de Aguirre had made the mistake of denying mounts to the Mercedarian missionaries of La Serena, and assigned the horses to his troops instead. This forced missionaries to participate, on foot, in Francisco de Aguirre’s reconnoitring patrols against the Indians, towards the Elqui hinterland and provoked their accusation to the Episcopal Inquisition in Lima.

The perfect acclimatisation of vine stocks in lots in Santiago and surroundings began to give good results and Pedro de Valdivia sends an extensive letter to the Emperor Charles V, dated September 4, 1545, in which he requests “vines and wines to evangelize Chile.” It must be considering that due to the economy management system under the rule of the Crown almost everything had need of a permit for new plantations or new exploitation, therefore asking for vines and wine Pedro de Valdivia was also asking for the approval of the Crown in order to perform a profitable business. In the same year of 1545, in January, the Spaniards discovered the largest mine of silver ever found, Cerro Rico in Potosí, that the Aymara and the Incas were exploiting since the 1,110 AD. The Spaniards just arriving immediately boosted the extraction of silver increasing the population in the vicinity of the mine.

The Cerro Rico mine in Potosí is at an altitude over 4,000 m.a.s.l., and its exploitation is carried out in very precarious conditions. The work in the mine was supported chewing coca leaves to procure energy, in addition, a clandestine and excessive intake of alcohol. The huge amounts of silver pouring into the European economy provoke a price revolution due to the inflationary process that took place in Western Europe during the second half of the 15th century and the first half of the 16th century. Over 150 years, prices increased six-fold.  The silver mined from Spanish Colonial America from 1530 to 1650 amounted 11,600 tons. In the decade of 1591 to 1600 was 2,707,626 kg, an average of 270,750 kg/year. The vast amounts of silver that were transferred into the hands of the crowns of Europe were from Zacatecas (Mexico) and Potosí (Alto Peru) exploited with slave labour. The mine of Cerro Rico in Potosí, that began to be exploited in large quantities from 1545, developing a huge population adjacent to the service of mining that also created a great demand for goods as food and drinks, including wine. The population in Potosí reached rapidly the 160.000 inhabitants, more than the mayority of the European capitals. The demand of wine acquired new and enormous dimensions to satisfay the increasing needs of the labourers of the mines, amongst them indigenous and African black slaves. This demand for alcohol stimulated the development of vineyards to produce wines and spirits (in Peru, Chile and Argentina). The silver from Cerro Rico was taken by llama (south american camelid) caravans and mule train to the Pacific coast, shipped north to Panama City, and carried by mule train across the isthmus of Panama to Nombre de Dios or Portobelo, whence it was taken to Spain on the Spanish treasure fleets. Initially, for the land transport of the silver was used following the ancient Inca roads of the Qhapaq Ñan, on its main Andean road to Lima, from whose port of Callao sailed the Royal Ships to the Caribbean, Havana and Seville. In March of 1549 this land route was used in the first shipment of royal fifths (20% tax in benefit of the crown), after three years of being discovered the Cerro Rico de Potosí. The trip lasted six months carrying 3,771 silver bars in a caravan of two thousand llamas, this route was only used a couple of times. After this experience the route was establish first from Potosí to Arequipa and from there to Lima but latter the Ruta de la Plata was a monopoly from Potosí to San Marcos de Arica where several llama caravans converge coming from at least three different routes. Some of the silver use the way southeast to Buenos Aires, via the Río de la Plata but a significant part of the production takes their route to Acapulco to satisfy the strongest China silver demand through the Manila Galleons trade.

In thirty years (1536 – 1566) Spain enjoyed a wealth of fortunate blows. A sequence of unthinkable events took place in the Spanish colonies and thanks to this Spain went from being a second or third order country to be the richest and most powerful country in the world, with resources enough to build “the empire on which the sun never sets“, the Spanish Empire. Almadén, Potosí, Zacatecas and Huancavelica are four names of places of exceptional importance to understand which the material support and the development of the empire and the Spanish crown was. Without them nothing would have been possible. Almadén in Spain, managed by German capital, produced the azogue (mercury) for the treament of the silver of Zacatecas in Mexico, and Huancavelica in Peru produced the azogue for Potosí in Alto Peru. Silver changed the world, particularly the silver of Cerro Rico. Miguel de Cervantes, coined in Spain the saying: Worth a Potosí, to reflect the immense wealth that treasured. Spain not only changed its history but also changed the world’s history, the beginning of an accelerated globalization and took advantage of the demand of China, as well as the demand of Europe and its own. The economy of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) of China was the largest in the world during that period. The Chinese Ming dynasty demanded huge amounts of silver and other goods as firearms from Europe and in return gave all kinds of luxury goods, silk, jewels and porcelain among them, that decorated the European elite that enjoys the benefits of taking over the silver of America. Manila joint to the Chinese goods the appreciated spices to satisfy the European demand. This was the task of the Manila Galleon, also called Nao of China or China Galleon and the Fleet of the Galleons of Tierra Firme, to reload the goods from the Far East to the treasure fleet from Veracruz or Portobelo to Seville or Cádiz.

The vine cuttings and all goods coming to the Kingdom of Chile arrive via Peru from the north instead of the Strait of Magellan discovered in 1520, in the south, twelve years before the conquest of Peru by Francisco Pizarro and fifteen before the arrival of Diego de Almagro to the Aconcagua Valley in Chile. If the vine cuttings would had arrive navigating the Strait of Magellan the ship bearing these plants have had been to cross the Southern Atlantic and, after crossing the Strait of Magellan reaching the Pacific Ocean, should make its way due north, towards Peru, having the option to stop in the ports of call and anchorage bays in the coast of Chile which made such a long trip more bearable. These not happened because the frequency of the navigation via the Strait of Magellan was low and the trip dangerous. After Fernão de Magalhães, a portuguese navigator to the service of the Spanish Crown, in November 1520, six years later the fleet of Frey Francisco José García Jofré de Loaísa, knight of the military religious Order of San Juan crossed the recently discovered strait. It is important to mention that the Spanish Crown purpose of the discovery of the Strait of Magellan, was always and from the beginning to find a new route to the Moluccas Islands, the islands of the spices. The pass through the strait was discovered almost a decade before the initiation of the conquest of the Inca Empire.

On Saturday May 26, 1526, the small Armada of García Jofré de Loaísa left the Strait of Magellan after 48 days of crossing it. The patache Santiago, one of his ships, commanded by Santiago de Guevara, desisted of the route towards the Moluccas Islands taking the currents towards north, he headed north and made an amazing journey of 10,000 km to reach the coast of New Spain. It gave fund in the gulf of Tehuantepec the 25 of July of 1526. Fourteen years later, in August 1539, Alonso de Camargo sailed from Seville on command of one of the three ships of the Armada of the Bishop of Plasencia on command of Frey Francisco de la Ribera, Adelantado de Nueva León, to explore the Strait of Magellan pass and to colonize Tierra del Fuego. Upon arriving at the Strait of Magellan in January of 1540, the small  fleet faced strong winds which separated the three ships, the ship of Frey Francisco de la Ribera was shipwrecked in the second pass of the Strait of Magellan and the crew was saved on the continental coast from the which they entered the inner Patagonia, the ship on command of Gonzalo de Alvarado after several attempts to enter the Strait returned to Spain in November 1540. The ship of Alonso de Camargo after being dragged by the winds towards what are now the Falkland Islands, which he called Samson Islands, returned to the west and managed to cross the Strait of Magellan, already in the Pacific Ocean heading north, he spotted the island of Chiloé and managed to arrive on August 15, 1540 to the newly founded city of Arequipa in Peru. Some 32 years later Juan Ladrillero, following the orders of the Viceroy of Peru, sailed the Strait of Magellan. He departs from the fluvial port of Valdivia; being the first to navigate the Strait of Magellan in both directions in 1558. After these four Spanish crossings of the Strait of Magellan it will pass another 20 years until Francis Drake became the first Englishman to cross the Strait of Magellan on September 1578, unveiling the most cherished and guarded secret of the Spanish crown, and the second in to circumnavigate de planet.

Francis Drake’s attacks to Spanish towns and vessels make such alarm that the Viceroy of Peru organize an Armada to look for him. Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa sailed out of the port of Callao with eleven vessels in 1579 to capture Drake. He did not find Drake, but he explored the southern Pacific Coast of South America, passed the Magellan Strait from west to east for the second time after Juan Ladrillero and, after an impressive sailing of the Atlantic Ocean from southwest to northeast, he reached Spain in late 1580. Thomas Cavendish was determined to follow Francis Drake by raiding the Spanish ports and ships in the Pacific and circumnavigating the globe. He reached the Strait of Magellan on January 1587 and heading north he managed to capture the Manila Galleon Santa Ana and following his original course back to England. After Thomas Cavendish it was Richard Hawkins, the son of John, the third Englishman who crossed the Strait of Magellan in 1594. Soon after, in 1599, Simon de Cordes in command, replacing Jacques Mahu (who died in the Atlantic), lead the first fleet from the Netherlands and the last fleet which crossed the Strait of Magellan during the XV century. The Netherlands five-ship fleet dispatched from the isle of Texel to the Far East through the Strait of Magellan, in 1598, belonged to a company of Rotterdam merchants (a voorcompagnie, predecessor of the Dutch East India Company) and it had the Englishman William Adams as pilot major, accompanied by his brother Thomas. England and the Netherlands were allies then. William Adams had serve in the Royal Navy, against the Spanish Armada in 1588, under the command of Francis Drake and he would become the first Englishman to stablish in Japan and becoming one of the few Western samurai, known as Miura Anjin (the pilot of Miura).

The Strait of Magellan was considered a difficult route to navigate by sail ships due to the narrowness of the passage and unpredictable winds and currents but is shorter and more sheltered than the often-stormy Drake Passage. Along with the narrow and sometimes treacherous Beagle Channel, these were the only three sea routes between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans until the construction of the Panama Canal. The Cape Horn was discovered and first rounded in 1616 by the Dutchman Willem Schouten, who named it Kaap Hoorn after the busy pilot’s port of Hoorn, his birthplace in the Netherlands and name of the second ship of their expedition led by Jacob Le Maire and lost in the South Atlantic. The expedition was organised in order to find the way to overcome the restrictions of the Dutch East India Company on the Spice islands trade, company which had a monopoly on the route around the Cape of Good Hope. The navigation through the route around the Cape Horn or the Strait of Magellan was not a practical route, and the merchant routes were organised in the northern hemisphere from Europe to the Caribbean, the Carrera de Indias, and from the Pacific coast of Mexico to Manila, the Carrera de las Filipinas or Manila Galleon route, that lasted for 250 years. The Strait of Magellan starts to be used as a strategic passage with the incoming of the steam ships from 1840 onwards. Until the beginning of the 20th Century, ships from Europe entered Chile from the South, the Panama Canal was inaugurated in 1914, and since then the Strait of Magellan compete with the Panama Channel as a commercial route, amongst the two oceans.

Nevertheless, the Jesuit Juan Ignacio Molina, better known as Abbe Molina, one of the first Chroniclers and Scientists of this colonial era, reported the existence of wild vines and grapevines of black muscatel grapes in inhospitable places of the Curicó area of the Andes Mountain Range region. Probably what Molina found was one or all of the wild vines also founded in Mexico: Vitis rupestris, Vitis labrusca and Vitis berlandieri which are not suitable to produce wines. As for Alonso Ovalle, he describes as the first grapevine grown in Chile, the ‘País’ vine stock variety, which resembles the ‘Criolla’ of Argentina or the ‘Mission’ in California, as first grapes. As white vines stocks the muscatel, torontel and albillo, and for reds the common black grape (País, Airen and Mollar) amongst others. However, Ovalle does not specify the origin of the vine stocks. The importance of this description lies nevertheless in that it certifies the excellent climatic conditions and of the soil that vines found in Chilean territory, in which chroniclers of that era coincide, be it in the northern reaches; central or South-central part of the country.

Another early winegrower of the central zone of Chile – Maipo Valley – was Juan Jofré de Loaiza y Montesa, son-in-law to Francisco de Aguirre who granted him for an inheritance and dowry, vast areas of land in Santiago, in the encomienda revision in 1546, Juan Jofré de Loaiza y Montesa, received land for farm in Ñuñoa, which he increased through purchases until he came to form an estate that stretched eastward from the Andes Mountain Range and from the Macul irrigation channel to the Maipo River, where he worked vineyards for the wine production.  He devoted the lands to winegrowing and his estate became extremely important as of 1554. In addition to being one of the first to do so, its quality achieved such fame that for certain transactions it was explicitly stated that the payment had to be made with “Ñuñoa wine from Juan Jofré’s harvest“. Also, it cultivated in the valley of Peuco, in lands that had received in favour of the Cabildo in 1556, those that later were known like Viña del Mar. The new plantations and Juan Jofré, who exported his wines to Peru since 1560, need constantly new labour. He use to acquired slaves in auction in 1564: “a black drunkard, thief, cut ears and sick, “closed charge and bone sack”, thirty-five years, for three hundred pesos of good gold.” The Cousiño Macul Winery still exists to this day in lthe lands that use to be of Juan Jofré. Some argue that another early winegrower in the Central Valley was Diego García de Cáceres, which is probably the case. Nevertheless, the main concern of Spaniards regarding winegrowing continued to be that of having wine available for the local demand and the growing demand of the silver mines of Potosí in Alto Peru and this explains the early incentive for the planting of vines. On 9 March 1555, in the capital of the then Kingdom of Chile, gathered in Council, the clergy signed a document establishing that: “At present there are in this city grapes from which to make wine so that the divine office may and will be celebrated. The edict further refers to the purchase of grapes up to a quantity which should be enough to make two barrels of wine”. As for Tibaldo of Toledo, Senior Chronicler for the Indies, he records that: “Santiago is the most gallant orchard in the world, surrounded by vegetable gardens, and olive groves, and vineyards from which much and very good wine is made“. The vineyards began extending increasingly towards the South, despite suffering the consequences of the enmity and uprisings of the indigenous people of the region, the Araucanians who often destroyed the plantations. The Araucanians did not know of grapes or wine, although they knew alcoholic beverages, which they made from maize, potatoes or other plants.

Despite the above, vineyards proliferated and extended until the uprising in 1576 of the Araucanian war chief Antecul, who destroyed seven cities, including Angol and Concepción. This time he did not pull up the vines from vineyards and brought about a special development. He collected the grapes and let them ferment, trying to copy the wine – making process he had observed of the conquerors. He did not obtain wine as such, but made instead a beverage similar to the “Chicha” (new wine), familiar to Indians who knew how to make it from maqui berries, maize or yucca, a knowledge probably inherited from the Quechua Indian customs, or other native cultures from farther north. The beverage obtained from grapes was given its pre-Colombian name for alcoholic beverages, and took roots in the Chilean culture. Grape Chicha also conquered the conquerors, which grew used to it and took pleasure in drinking it.

After four Spanish crossing of the Strait of Magellan, first Fernão de Magalhães in 1520, then Frey Francisco José García Jofré de Loaísa in 1526, Alonso de Camargo in 1540 and finally Juan Ladrillero in 1558, the privateer Francis Drake, in October 1578, enter the cherished secret of the Spanish crown becoming the first Englishman in finding and crossing the Strait of Magellan, following the steps of its discoverer. Once in the shore of the Magellan Strait Francis Drake and his men engaged in skirmish with local indigenous people, becoming the first Europeans to kill indigenous peoples in southern Patagonia. Just one ship successfully crossed the Strait of Magellan along with the Golden Hinde which was the Elizabeth, captained by John Winter, Drake´s second in command. The Marigold was destroyed against the coast and the Elizabeth were separated from the Golden Hinde when face a storm entering the Pacific Ocean and Winter turned back. The Golden Hinde headed towards north along the coast of Chile.

Drake’s second encounter with the inhabitants of Patagonia was on the Pacific coast, with the native Mapuche people, in November 25, 1578, at La Mocha Island, where he anchored to approach land searching for vegetables and fresh water, after an initial friendly greeting a surprise fight arose where two crew members were killed and two others badly wounded by arrows, Drake himself was injured twice gaining the scar below his right eye which will accompany him as a memory of the second circumnavigation of the planet for the rest of his life.

Francis Drake and his crew leave Mocha Island for a shelter cove in Papudo, north of Valparaíso where they recovered from their wounds and rested having water and food from the local Chango Indians. Felipe, a civilized Chango Indian, a fisherman who spoke Spanish and they found there, told them that they just have passed Valparaíso and he could pilot them into the port to seize a Spanish vessel. Therefore, the 5th of December 1578, the tide changed for the Elizabeth’s Sea Dog as the Golden Hind slipped into the bay to seize the only ship anchored there, the crew of eight Spaniards and three negroes took them for friends, salute them with drum beats and make ready a jar of Chilean wine to drink with them. In this, an audacious manoeuvre, in his first strike against a Spanish colonial town in the Pacific coast of America Francis Drake had captured La Capitana under the command of Hernando Lamero y Gallego de Andrade, a celebrated pilot and businessman who leaped overboard and swam ashore to give the alarm of the assault of Drake’s men. Hernando Lamero had loaded his vessel with 25.000 pesos of fine gold brought from Valdivia (Baldivia wrote Drake) and 1720 Chilean wine clay jugs (colonial botigas of one arroba [35,5 liters] or botigas de carga for transport of two arrobas [71 liters]). Valparaíso was the first port assaulted by Francis Drake and gold and Chilean wines were his first booty in the beginning of their plundering in the Pacific.

The Captaine of Moriall (La Capitana in Spanish reports) wine cargo had been originally destined to supply the mining town of Potosí silver mountain in Alto Peru via the Spanish port of San Marcos de Arica. The gold from La Capitana had been destined to the Spanish Silver Train, a trail used by cargo mule’s trains to transport silver coming mainly from Potosí across the Isthmus of Panama to the port city of Nombre de Jesús in order to load it into the ships’ holds of the Spanish treasure fleet from Portobello to Habana and from there to Seville or Cádiz. Francis Drake at the time did not know that some years later he would succeed in capturing the mule train from the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama and later would also find in the area his own death. Probably Francis Drake and his crew were the first Englishmen in tasting the Chilean wines which had been playing such a significant role in the Spanish conquest. There is unknown if this wine sailed along with Drake to arrive to the table of Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, in the very heart of England, to rival with French wines.

It is recorded that wines coming from parcels cultivated from Roman times such as Haut-Brion, Latour, Margaux and Lafite amongst other wines from Bordeaux, despite being branded most of them later, were in England since the time of Leonor of Aquitaine, to enhance the offer of the Royal dinner table. These were the times of England’s golden age, the very beginnings of the British Empire. They were the times of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men company of actors, a “playing company” where Richard Burbage was the main actor and for which William Shakespeare wrote for most of his career, and for whose performance, as secondary actor on the stage, the Queen pleasantly used to go to see at The Theatre before the inauguration of Shakespeare’s associated theatre: The Globe. Certainly, Francis Drake did not know the Globe but for sure he pays a visit to The Theatre to see one of the famous plays of Shakespeare on the fashion at the times. These were the times of Shakespeare and Cervantes one in England and the other in Spain.

The most important and relevant fact of the Francis Drake circumnavigation trip was the assault in the coast of Ecuador of the 120-ton galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción nicknamed Cacafuego (shitfire) for its fire power. Drake took from the galleon a booty of gold and the unbelievable amount of 27 tons of silver, approximately one tenth of the annual production of silver of the Cerro Rico mine of Potosí. John Maynard Keynes linked all British foreign investment to the single act of looting of the Cacafuego. Keynes wrote: “I trace the beginnings of British foreign investment to the treasure which Drake stole from Spain in 1580. In that year he returned to England bringing with him the prodigious spoils of the Golden Hind. Queen Elizabeth was a considerable shareholder in the syndicate which had financed the expedition. Out of her share she paid off the whole of England’s foreign debt, balanced her Budget, and found herself with about £40,000 in hand….”  The booty was of such magnitude that Drake revealed a return to his investors £ 47 for every £ 1 invested [a return of 4700%]. The exact amount was never known, part of the loot was concealed from investors (including Sir Christopher Hatton) and distributed between Drake and Queen Elizabeth I. The income of the crown was higher than its annual budget. According to John Maynard Keynes: “The booty that Drake brought into the Golden Hinde can fairly be considered as the source and origin of British foreign investment.”

The Disaster of Curalaba and the arrival of the Company of Jesus

In the winter of 1536, the first conquistadors came to the banks of the Itata River and fought in its vicinity the Battle of Reynogüelén (Reinohuelén) between Spanish conquistadors under the command of Gómez de Alvarado y Contreras, second in command of Diego de Almagro expedition to Chile, against the Mapuche soldiers of the area. Gómez de Alvarado y Contreras was the youngest brother of Pedro de Alvarado, conqueror of Guatemala, who withdraw from the conquest of Perú selling six out of the eight ships of his Armada to Diego de Almagro in Quito, one of the first fleet built in the Pacific coast of America. His brother return to Guatemala and Gómez de Alvarado y Contreras and others joint Diego de Almagro into the expedition, first to Perú and later to Chile where was ordered, when they were at the Aconcagua Valley, to head to the south to explore following the coast of Chile to reach the Strait of Magellan, this purpose brought Gómez de Alvarado to Reynogüelén. This first encounter with the Mapuche soldiers is usually taken as the beginning of the Arauco War between the two parties, the Mapuche indigenous people army, trained in the warfare against the Inca Empire soldiers, and the Spanish Empire colonial army, the most powerful world’s army in the XVI century, the Spanish Tercio, then, a state of the art warfare formation.

One of the oldest plantations of vineyards in the south of the country with vines for winemaking were planted since 1551, a year after the foundation of the city of Concepción and the same year when the first harvest enough to make wine occur in the Maipo Valley. The first vines of the south were planted in several areas under the assumption that they would not need irrigation, amongst them in Penco, close to Concepción but they would not survive. In addition, they did it in the Itata Valley, were they also were planted without irrigation which limited their production allowing the natural production of better wines and they adapted in such a way that they create with the pass of the centuries new well adapted phenotypes. These original vines were brought from Peru by order of Don Pedro de Valdivia himself to Diego de Oro just appointed as the first Corregidor of Concepción. The vines which he orders to plant along the riverbanks in the Itata Valley, produced the first proper wine in 1556. From then and spite of the permanent struggle with the Mapuche soldiers the conquistador’s vineyards prospered.

Some years later the places planted will be managed under the Hacienda Cucha-Cucha, one out of many old Jesuit “temporality” and outstanding colonial model farm in the Itata Valley, is the most illustrious one in the valley and it is located in the area of Confluencia (Spanish for the confluence of the Ñuble and Itata Rivers), Commune of Portezuelo, on the banks of the Itata River.

South of Hacienda Cucha-Cucha, 150 km south, 60 years later, in December 21, 1598, Governor Martín García Oñez de Loyola was riding towards Purén leading a squad of 50 men. The following day they camped in Curalaba (means split stone in Mapudungun) with confidence and without taking protective measures. The Mapuche people aware of their presence, led by the toqui Pelantaru and his lieutenants, Anganamón and Guaiquimilla, with their three hundred men cavalry, shadowed his movements attacking the Spanish squad in an unexpected night raid. Completely surprised, the governor and most of his companions were killed. This event was called by the Spaniards, the Disaster of Curalaba. It involved not only the death of the Spanish governor, but the news rapidly spread among the Mapuche and triggered a general revolt, long-prepared by the toqui Paillamachu, that destroyed Spanish camps and towns south of the Bío-Bío River over the next few years establishing the Bío-Bío river as the so called La Frontera (the border) between the Spanish colony and Arauco, the so called Mapuche people territory.

Although the Jesuit order was first established in Santiago (1593), it was just after the Battle of Curalaba, specifically 14 years later, in May 1612, that the priests of the Company of Jesus, under the command of Father Luis de Valdivia, arrived in Concepción and from there they were distributed in the estates of Itata. The Hacienda Cucha-Cucha appears to be ceded to the order by Juan Ventura de Lerma y Castilla, a Spaniard who came to Chile and married in Penco with Jacinta de la Barra, a widow principal lady, who previously owned the Hacienda already planted with vines and producing wines. When she died, she hands over to him in heritage the Hacienda Cucha-Cucha. Then Juan Ventura de Lerma y Castilla, having no heirs, donated Hacienda Cucha-Cucha, in 1627, to the Jesuit College of Concepción. Luis de Valdivia, who arrived at Concepción in 1612, was a promoter of the defensive war against the Araucanians (Spanish name for the Mapuche indigenous people), he resided in the Hacienda Cucha-Cucha when the hacienda was hand over to the Jesuits. Luis de Valdivia (1560–1642) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary who defended the rights of the natives of Chile and pleaded for the reduction of the hostilities with the Mapuches in the Arauco War. After the Battle of Curalaba in 1598 followed by the revolt of the Mapuche and the destruction of seven Spanish cities of the colony, Luis de Valdivia, successfully advocated the establishment of a border between the Mapuche territory and the territory under Spanish rule and the replacement of military campaigns by missionary work that, from their point of view, would attempt the religious conquest of the rebellious Mapuche. His project, called Defensive warfare, aroused the initial support of the Spanish monarchy, but over the years it was considered a failure and left Luis de Valdivia in disrepute.

The Company of Jesus immediately after their arrival to the country, at dawn of the XVII century, bought and received large and rich estates in donation. This allowed large-scale production. The surpluses of the estates were concentrated in warehouses of Valparaíso, Santiago and Talcahuano. From there they were exported to Argentina and Peru tallow, fine leathers of goat, wheat, wines and spirits. Then the bonanza allowed to bring specialists in various techniques and arts from Europe. They established businesses in Santiago and Concepción; watchmaking workshops, a smelting furnace, weaving workshops in La Calera, Chillán and Chíloé. Also workshops of joinery, goldsmithing and polychrome sculpture. Lime was extracted at the Hacienda de La Calera to reduce the costs of its many constructions. There, they established the industrial centre of their operations, the Company of Jesus by the middle of the 18th century had 25 establishments in Chile and more than 3,000 people working in its companies of which 1,380 were black slaves and an undetermined number of administrators, laborers, servants, shopkeepers, Mule drivers, shoemakers, winemakers, etc.

The Jesuits acquired, either by purchase or inheritance, large estates in the region near Concepción, which provided an infrastructure of mills, vineyards and animals. Undoubtedly, the small population in the valley north of Itata was a determining factor in agricultural productivity. However, from the production of the Jesuits in the Itata valley, it allowed the follow-up of the “model of economic exploitation” that they imposed all over the country to diversify production, with new methods of tillage, use of machinery, agro industries, works, looms, etc., almost an autarkic model of production more modern than the medieval one. In this sense the Jesuits had great importance in the economic development of the region through work on their properties and in the creation of the economic structure what made them very wealthy. They owned several haciendas among them La Magdalena, Tierras del Torreón, Perales, Guanquehua, Conuco and Cucha-Cucha. In 1767 King Charles III ordered the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and its colonies. Six years later the Spanish monarch got Pope Clement XIV to suppress the order of the Jesuits.

By 1770, Hacienda Cucha-Cucha, in the banks of the Itata River, had 2,400 blocks of land, some buildings, a vineyard and wineries. This hacienda maintained a raft service in the Itata River to transport its products, consisted especially of wines and brandy that were taken to Concepción. After the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1776, it was first appraised at $ 4,020, then at $ 8,000 and then at $ 6,789. On January 21, 1768, it was leased to José Bustos in the amount of $ 700, and on May 15, 1776, it was auctioned off from the crown by Juan Alejandro Urrejola y Peñaloza, the founder of this family in Concepción, supporters of the King of Spain, in the amount of $ 9,900 payable within eight years with 5% annual interest. From the point of view of winemaking, the historian Sánchez Andaur points out that in this 2,000-square-mile hacienda, located in the Itata Party, 28,070 ordinary vine plants have been inventoried, and 2,000 ordinary vine plants have been stocked for one year. A block a little longer and 25 to 30 yards wide, “which were valued at 4,383 pesos.” In the cellar, 42 ½ rods long, with corridors covered with tile, were registered “31 jars full of wine, containing 844 arrobas of wine and 2 pitchers, 3 jars of brandy, which make 42 arrobas and a pitcher. Several empty jars, 5 chillers or pylons, funnels, wooden stirrers to dress the wine “. Estimates in liters, would be 29,962 of wine and 1,491 of eau de vie.

During the struggles for the independence of Chile from the crown of Spain, the Hacienda Cucha-Cucha was the scene of combats and guerrillas. The Combat of Cucha Cucha occurred on February 23, 1814. The confrontation occurred when forces of the Royal Army of Spain in Chile attacked the rear of the troops of the rebel army of Chile and the Battalion of Auxiliary Argentines of the United Provinces of Río de la Plata under the command of Juan Mackenna, finally the contingent defender of the crown fled during the night.

The uprising and hostilities in the Bio-Bio River region brought about the development of estates further north, in the Cauquenes and Mataquito areas. One of the largest estates known in the 17th Century was that of Diego de León. On the other hand, Diego de Rosales, a historian of the Colonial era describes the area surrounding the city of Maipú as a vast garden producing wheat, corn, kidney beans, peas and lentils, as well as a multitude of trees and endless vineyards from which excellent wines were obtained. From the onset of the Conquest Pedro de Valdivia, Conqueror of Chile and later Francisco de Aguirre emphasised in letters to the King of Spain the exceptional conditions for the production of grapes and wine making. One of the basic needs of the Catholic Church’s liturgy, the consecration of wine, made it essential to plant vineyards, initially managed by convents and abbeys. Monks and later laymen planted vineyards, and the wine industry achieved such an importance that the Spanish Crown considered that the production of wine in its Colonies was prejudicial to the commerce of brandy and wine from the Spanish peninsula. It is not surprising to discover that Chile was the main exporter of wines to the rest of the Spanish colonies at the beginning of the 17th Century. King Philip II dictated norms, which forbade the planting of vineyards in the Kingdom of Chile, norms that were reiterated in documents of the Viceroyalty in 1620, 1628 and 1631. The royal document of June 1st 1654, in addition to reiterating the prohibition of planting new vineyards, ordered the owners to pay a tax to the Crown, so as to be allowed to maintain the existing ones. Despite the prohibitions, native Chileans continued enthusiastically to plant vineyards, until finally the Governor of Chile stated in a letter to the Queen of Spain, dated the 10th of August 1678, the impossibility of continuing to apply the prohibition.

By 1594, 100 thousand arrobas a year, equivalent to 1.6 million liters of wine, were produced in the Kingdom of Chile. Throughout the colonial period, the price of wine remained between 19 and 22 reales per arroba – equivalent to 16.13 liters -, and there were only sporadic increases, as a result of the bad harvests or the advance of the Arauco war that affected production in the south of the territory. Even though wine production was primarily destined for domestic consumption, part of it was exported to neighboring countries. The emergence of growing wine industries in México, Perú, Chile and Argentina was a threat to the Spanish Crown income, with Philip III and succeeding monarchs issuing decrees and declarations ordering the uprooting of New World vineyards and halting the production of wine by the colonies. In Chile, these orders were largely ignored; but in Argentina, they served to stunt growth and development until independence was gained from Spanish rule.

In 1794, King Carlos IV, to protect the Spanish wine trade, issued a royal order prohibiting the export of Chilean wines to Nueva España (México) and Nueva Granada (Colombia and Venezuela). While this was happening, one of the descendants of Francisco de Aguirre, in 1700, had sold to Miguel Pinto de Escobar y Blanco the estate of the Elqui Valley called “’Estancia de Monte Grande” which currently encompasses the rivers “Claro” and “Cochihuas”. It was at the confluence of those two rivers, in the current village of “Monte Grande” (birthplace of Chilean Nobel Prize poetess Gabriela Mistral) that, at the time, Miguel Pinto de Escobar y Blanco planted the first vineyards inside the valley, to make wine and brandy. When he passed away, at over 100 years of age, Miguel Pinto de Escobar y Blanco through his will (Notaries archives of “La Serena” Volume 146 page 142) disposed of “25 large earthen jars of wine, 25 empty ones and one full of brandy”. Perhaps this is the very first document on the incipient industry of the distillation of new wine in the valley, and probably in Chile. Then the Kingdom of Chile, thus became the first and largest producer and exporter of wines of the period, since only in 1655, Jan Van Riebeeck, of the Dutch East Indies Company planted the first vineyards in South Africa, to produce his first wines in 1659. Brother Junípero Serra planted the first vineyards of ‘Mission’ vine stock, in the Northern California region, in 1779 and made wine in 1782. The first success in the planting of vineyards, in the British Empire, was that of Captain Arthur Phillips who had grapevine stocks from Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town planted in Farm Cove, close to the penal colony of Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) in 1788, while the first harvest in Australia took place a few years later.

Visionaries and French grapevine stocks

In 1851, 300 years after Rodrigo de Araya and Francisco de Aguirre’s first grape harvests, Silvestre Ochagavía Echazarreta, a visionary among winegrowers, brought personally from France a choice of fine vine stocks among which; Cabernet, Côt (Malbec), Merlot, Pinot, Riesling, Sauvignon and Semillon, thus expanding the diversity of the vine stocks. Silvestre Ochagavía is one of the first of a long series of wine growers, many of which had made fortunes in mining, who followed his example and adopted the trend of planting vine stocks brought from France, establishing an extensive network of irrigation canals and improving productivity. In 1863, Luis Cousiño inherits a property of 1.000 hectares of one of the first lands planted with vineyards in colonial times by Juan Jufré de Loaysa, in 1548, the lands of Macul. Luis Cousiño with his wife Isidora Goyenechea also inherit the dream of starting a family wine production. They decided to renew the vines that were grown there from time immemorial, bringing vines from France, immediately before the strike of Phylloxera blight in Europe. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot were brought from Pauillac, Sauvignon Vert and Sauvignon Gris from Martillac and Riesling from Alsace, the latter personally selected by Isidora Goyenechea. Some agriculturists, such as Manuel Antonio Tocornal, planted these new vines in their estates.

Among these we find José Tomás Urmeneta (Urmeneta Vineyard), Maximiliano and Rafael Errázuriz (Panquehue Estate), F.J. Correa (Lontué Vineyard), Francisco and Ramón Subercaseaux (Subercaseaux Vineyard), Luis Cousiño (Cousiño Macul Vineyard), Macario Ossa (Santa Teresa Vineyard), Bonifacio Correa (San Pedro Vineyard), Domingo Fernández Concha (Santa Rita Vineyard), Melchor Concha y Toro (Concha y Toro Vineyard), Cristian Lanz (Carmen Vineyard), José Joaquín Aguirre (Conchalí Vineyard), Ismael Tocornal (San José Vineyard), Luis Pereira (Santa Carolina Vineyard), Francisco Undurraga (Undurraga Vineyard), Alejandro Dussaillant (Casablanca Vineyard) and various others.

The main benefit of the above trend, over and above it being good business, is that those involved were seeking the prestige associated with quality. Thus most of these new winegrowers gave their own name, or the name of their wife, to their best wines, and many of these are still being produced to this day. This change was also made feasible through the employment of several European oenologists, who noticeably improved production techniques some years prior to the expansion of the phylloxera plague. This plague originated in the United States and since 1863 (the year will vary from country to country) ravaged the vineyards of the whole world, with the exception of those in Chile. This country along with the Canary Islands and Cyprus can, therefore, show pre-phylloxera traits in the production of its plants, which go back to their earliest origins. The above has led some experts to say that the true taste and original aroma of French wines (their original vine stocks came from Armenia, Imeretia and Georgia, through Lebanon and Greece, and the expansion of the Roman Empire) can be appreciated in Chile. In France wine growers must graft phylloxera resistant strains onto the vine stocks of the variety they wish to obtain (which could modify the taste of the wines). This is unnecessary in Chile, where the desired vine stock is planted directly in the soil, à pied franc.

The destruction of the vineyards due to Phylloxera (Dactylosphaera vitifoliae) in France resulted also in the emigration of a large number of French oenologists to Chile. Thus, Ochagavía employed the French Technician Paul Joseph Bertrand, who introduced technological improvements, which were revolutionary at the time and disseminated the French vine stocks throughout the Santiago region. In 1860 Joseph Bachelet came to Chile from Burgundy, with many plants brought from Chassagne, for the Subercaseaux Vineyard and in 1875 the country’s wine production was of over 50 million litres. In that same year René Le Feuvre was employed to organise the higher level Agricultural Studies in the country. Le Feuvre pointed out to the Government of Chile the advantage of developing the country’s wine growing industry, given the excellent conditions of a huge part of its territory for this purpose. The special circumstances provoked by the phylloxera in the rest of world gave Chilean winegrowers the responsibility for safeguarding the fine pre-phylloxera vine stocks, which are a Heritage of Mankind.

In order to increase the commerce of wine, following the trend introduced by French oenologists, and also to facilitate its transport and storage, fine wines began to be bottled as of 1870. This allowed renewing the wine exports tradition of the 17th Century. Macario Ossa, in 1877, in line with that tradition exports a sizeable lot of wines harvested from his Santa Teresa Vineyard to Bordeaux, France, for which he receives 25 gold cents per hundred litres of wine. Guillermo Brown also makes an important export of wines to France at about the same time. The negative effects of the devastating phylloxera plague on the offer of French wines become noticeable, and the demand from Europe increased, as the quality of Chilean wines became better known and appreciated. This recognition materialised in various wine exhibitions in which Chilean wines obtained prizes: in Bordeaux in 1882, in Liverpool in 1885, and in the Paris World Exhibition in 1889, where the Chilean samples obtained the Jury’s Grand Prix. Towards the year 1900, with 40,000 hectares in production, French technical Directors were managing most of the large vineyards. Among them, in addition to those already mentioned, were Marin Percheux at the Subercaseaux Vineyard following the tradition initiated by Joseph Bachelet in 1860, Alfred Gabarroche at the Urmeneta Vineyard, Pierre Durand at the Cousiño Macul Vineyard, Paul Pacotet at the Casablanca Vineyard, maintaining their presence in the country since the 19th Century.

The last winegrowing revolution

In the second half of the 20th Century another huge change took place in the Chilean wine growing industry, centred around the insertion in the national industry of the Spanish oenologist and winegrower Miguel Torres Riera, whose father Miguel Torres Carbó purchased a vineyard in Curicó in 1979, thus initiating a new era for Chilean wines. As is the case for all changes, there are previous facts and diverse causes for this, but the main one is that since the decade of the 1980’s a process of technological innovation started in the vineyards of the country, which began replacing the existing wood and cement vats by stainless steel ones, and using refrigerating equipment, grinding machines and advanced technology presses. Miguel Torres winery was one of the first in replacing, for red wine, the old vats of moderate capacity (fudres) in use then for the ageing of red wines, by new small vats (225 to 300 litres). The importance of the insertion of Miguel Torres in the local industry lies in that it not only triggered a process of technological changes in the management of vineyards, and of winemaking, but also brought to the attention of the international winegrowers the merits of Chile as a wine producing country. At the end of the decade of the 80s, as coincidence, there was an increment of Australian wine export prices, then the main and almost unique exporter of quality wines from the southern hemisphere to the United Kingdom, at the time the largest wine world’s import market. It is important to remember that South Africa, another potential exporter to the Commonwealth countries, was under United Nations sanctions due to their reluctant to terminate with the apartheid regime, a system of institutionalised racial segregation. Apartheid (an Afrikaans word meaning segregation) was based on baasskap (Afrikaans for white supremacy) sustained in an authoritarian political and social culture, which encouraged state repression of Black African, Coloured, and Asian South Africans for the benefit of the nation’s minority white population. So, the UN members prohibited South Africa to trade with to the UN countries, amongst them, the United Kingdom. Another wine exports candidate was Argentina, the world fifth largest producer of wine, but because of having higher domestic prices compared with the export possible prices did not took the opportunity. Chile was at the beginning of the change from obsolete wine processes towards new technology, however, irrelevant in terms of wine production, out of date in technology and of its quality unknown, therefore without offer good enough. Uruguay and New Zealand were too small to be players on the game. This situation triggered the presence of British wine importers in Chile with long term offers to several wine companies in exchange of a migration to reliable quality wines offer.

The strong and stable wine demand from the United Kingdom importers consolidated the Chilean wine companies change to the state-of-the-art winemaking rapidly, some of the old companies adapt themselves with success and new companies were founded. The trilogy of changing towards state-of-the-art technology, with strong and stable demand and extraordinary natural agroclimatic conditions, which allow to produce at low cost, boosted the Chilean wine industry from an invisible position in the wine world’s stage in 1980 to become the world fifth largest wine exporter country in 2010.

Few companies took advantage of the international changing environment at the end of the 80s, the significant and unilateral rising of Australian wine prices at the end of the 80s. The visits of the British wine importers to Chilean wine companies, offering long term deals if the Chilean companies were willing to change towards wine excellence production was an effective incentive. It is fair to say that one factor which help to awake the Chilean wine industry born in the XVI century and asleep from the end of the XIX century was the rise of the Australian wine prices in the 80s. Most of the few (9) companies in the industry then, took the challenge, only one company in their area of comfort with the domestic market refuse to take it, then three of the main company executives resign their positions and create a new company (Viña Montes). One of the companies which took the challenge seriously was Concha y Toro, an old company listed in the Stock Exchange from 1933, dedicated to the domestic market with few exports. After start with the UK they made an agreement, in 1988, with Banfi Vintners a well stablished distributor in the United States, the largest wine market at the time, to distribute their wines, after that they made with them a joint venture in 2011 creating Excelsior Wine Company and finally in 2018, Concha y Toro bought the share of Banfi Vinters in order to develop the advance to their own global distribution system. Concha y Toro, depending on the year considered, represents around one third of Chilean wine exports throughout several companies in addition to the company listed in the stock exchange under which are Concha y Toro, Cono Sur, Quinta de Maipo, Trivento (Argentina) and Fetzer (USA). By 2018 there was around 400 wine companies of all sort and size, including a bunch of survivors’ companies from the XIX century like Cousiño Macul. Most of the main and largest Chilean wine companies belongs to large economic groups, therefore, no more than five groups control more than half Chilean wine exports.

International experts in the wine industry recognise Chile’s natural advantages and its tradition, which has led them to recommend investing in Chile to prestigious entrepreneurs of the winegrowing industry and world-wide tradition, such as Miguel Torres (Torres). Robert Mondavi (Caliterra), Kendall Jackson (Calina Vineyard), and William Cole, Beringer Blass Wine Estates, the Kingston family vineyards and Edward Tutunjian (Apaltagua) all from the United States. By 2018 there were more than 50 direct foreign investments in the wine industry 22 out of them from French origin, among them Eric von Rothschild (Los Vascos), Michel Paoletti (Domaine Oriental, Casa Donoso), Paul Pontalier from Château Margaux, Bruno Prats from Château Saint-Estèphe and Ghislain de Montgolfier from Champagne Bollinger joint in the Maipo Valley company Aquitania, Dominique Massenez (Château Los Boldos) who later hand over this winery to the Sogrape portuguese group of the Guedes family, and creating Massenez Fine Wine, a new family company. On the other hand Alexandra Marnier Lapostolle, from the family owner of Grand Marnier, along with her husband Cyril de Bournet and the advice and help of Michel Rolland created Casa Lapostolle in the Colchagua Valley. Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Jacques and François Lurton, William Fèvre, Louis-Michel Liger-Belair of Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair (Château Vosne-Romaneé in France and Aristos in Chile), Count Patrick d’Aulan and Didier Debono (Altamana) Joseph Louis Martin-Bouquillard (Clos Andino), Raynaud Lacaze (Biowines) and Michel Laroche (Michel Laroche & Jorge Coderch Vineyard and Punto Alto winery) as well as Patrick Valette (El Principal), Denis Duveau (Duveau), Raphaël Michel Group (Casa Tipaume), all them also from France. The Odfjell family (Odfjell Vineyards) and Alexander Vik (VIK Winery and Hotel) both from Norway. Mauro von Siebenthal from Switzerland. Vincor International Inc. (Caballero de Chile) and Magnotta Winery from Canada. Italian companies are not absent of this conquest of the lands of Chile therefore, the Marchesi Antinori family bought Haras de Pirque in the traditional Pirque area, Count Francesco Marone Cinzano founded Reserva de Caliboro in the Cauquenes area, and the Zonin family established Dos Almas and Italian winemaker Maurizio Castelli made a joint venture in the Maule Valley. On the other hand, the Yantai Changyu Pioneer Wine company as well as the Agribusiness holding COFCO both from China bought several wineries during 2016 and 2017. Some of the original owners have change but just a few of them. These companies and people among many others, have chosen the valleys of Chile or have entered into partnership with Chilean entrepreneurs to establish new vineyards, whether due to the increasing difficulties faced by the wine growing industry in the Northern Hemisphere, or as part of the expansion strategy.

We can say in closing that Chile, a paradise for the production of healthy vine stocks, conquered by the Spanish crown in the 16th Century, has been re-discovered, almost five centuries later, by the most traditional European fine wine growers, thus becoming a promised land for fine wines. These new winegrowers have influenced a major change, as radical as it was fast, through the increasing incorporation of advanced technology in the wine growing industry. Such a change has been oriented among other targets, to the incorporation of science and applied science (the various technologies) specially in the most powerful, albeit not sufficiently known, phenomenon of light, which, as we have stated possesses characteristics in Chile which make this country stand out among other wine grapes producing areas.