State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2016 - Case study: Making a dream reality: the story of Argentina's first indigenous vineyard

By Alfredo Gutierrez Carrizo and Carolyn Stephens

When, in late 2010, the indigenous Diaguita Cacique of Amaicha del Valle, Eduardo 'Lalo' Nieva, was walking early one morning near his home in the beautiful Valles Calchaquíes of Tucumán, Argentina, he came to a small hilltop in the centre of the enormous valley between the mountains and looked around. From there he could see the high Andean mountains leading to Chile, north along the valleys towards the mountains bordering Bolivia and south towards the neighbouring province of Catamarca.

As this moment, Eduardo came to a sudden decision – this would be the site of the first indigenous winery (bodega) and craft centre in Argentina. He called together the Council of Elders and brought them to the hilltop. At this point, as Eduardo admits, the project was just a dream.

'We wanted to do something innovative, and it was a huge challenge – to make viniculture in the valleys part of our own future. But this was not just about wine. It was also about creating a space for our artisans and local products, and recuperating security for the community in terms of food, and economic and social sustainability.'

This would be the real challenge for the community: the region, on both sides of the Andes in Chile and Argentina, is home to many major international vineyards, themselves fighting for space in the fiercely competitive international wine market. But the difference is that, while the country's wine industry in general is almost entirely controlled by people of European descent, this would be owned and managed by the local community. Building an indigenous bodega was no easy task, however, and many hours were spent discussing how the indigenous community could create a sustainable process with high-quality products that could compete with established vineyards while bringing the unique heritage of the Diaguita peoples of the ancient Calchaquí Valleys to the process.

From these first discussions, progress to a fully functioning vineyard required a steep learning curve for the community. The first concern was about water – while the site was striking and highly symbolic, no one knew whether it would have enough water – but almost immediately the community found that they had a spring that could supply the bodega. There was then the challenge of locating the first 25 producer families to plant and care for the vines on small plots of land. As none of the producers wished to use pesticides and had little or no training in commercial wine-making themselves, the harvest and transport of the grapes to the bodega has been supported by the whole community. There was also the need to identify appropriate grape varieties, including an ancient variety brought by priests during the Spanish invasion of Argentina, used by the community but rarely commercialized, and a more common variety of Malbec. And, finally, there was the sourcing of all the equipment and the construction of the actual bodega, a traditional circular building made of symbolically selected local stones.

Fortunately, funding, advice and donations came from far and wide: besides support from the national government, a major and highly respected vineyard, Rutini, donated some of their own barrels and local wine experts, engineers and architects offered their technical support free of charge. As one local specialist in viniculture says, 'The atmosphere here in the harvest and production of the wine is totally unique – a shared enterprise, with everyone working together with a shared solidarity.'

The vineyard aims to produce a small batch of organic, high-quality wine that will help support not just the producer families, but also the whole community through vino-tourism, tastings and trade in local artisanal products and traditional medicine. With its first harvest in 2015, the bodega will be officially launched in April 2016 with a major indigenous festival to celebrate this exciting initiative.

The key challenge is to ensure this whole enterprise is sustainable and continues to benefit the community, both socially and economically. Representing a creative interaction of ancient indigenous traditions with the more recent European art of wine cultivation, it raises broader questions regarding the opportunities that interaction with the modern globalized world can bring, alongside the potential pitfalls of assimilation and cultural loss. Other indigenous wineries exist in the world and have faced the same challenges, including the first indigenous winery in Canada, founded in 1968 and now established as a model of First Nation eco-vino-tourism, taking on major players in the North American wine industry while complementing the production of wine with a distinctive experience of indigenous culture.

There is clearly no simple panacea to the protection and conservation of historical indigenous cultures, particularly in the context of globalization and free trade agreements, and the community of Amaicha are aware of the tightrope that must be walked between ancient heritage and contemporary culture. As Eduardo Nieva says, 'The trick is to break the mould' – an achievement the winery has managed to pull off by drawing on living traditions to create an enterprise that, while adapted to today's world, has nevertheless stayed true to the rich heritage of the community's past.