Wine Law

PROFESSIONAL ORGANISATION OF ARGENTINE VITICULTURE 401 One of the important conclusions taken with the experience is that the exercise of control and taxing should not be in the same hands of the entity in charge of the promotion of the industry, because both tasks are objectively incompatible. In Argentina’s case, the Instituto Nacional de Vitivinicultura (National Institute of Viticulture, henceforth: INV), created in 1959 by Law 14.878, which aimed at regulating wine production, industry and commerce throughout the country. This law enforcement regime had as prime legal benefit the protection of the product’s authenticity towards the “vulnerability” of the products elaborated in a background with an atomised supply. It is probable that, in order to avoid disrupting the production prices of small producers, this “wine police” may take measures destined to restrict supply. INC’s Executive Board was integrated by a president designated by the Executive Power, representatives of the Provinces of Mendoza, San Juan, Río Negro and La Rioja, representatives of the producers and industries, representatives of the wine cooperatives, representatives from the rest of the provinces by order of their productions and representatives of the wine workers and fractionators – a collegiate body entrusted joint supervisory and promotional powers. That is how the INV was assigned with policing tasks and the capacity to define products and enological exercises and prosecute infringers. Such infraction regime emphasised the matter of the fraud, honouring the Hispanic tradition according to what Cervantes said in Quijote : “ Sancho spent the afternoon in drawing up certain ordinances relating to the good government of what he fancied the island; and he ordained that there were to be no provision hucksters in the State, and that men might import wine into it from any place they pleased, provided they declared the quarter it came from, so that a price might be put upon it according to its quality, reputation, and the estimation it was held in; and he that watered his wine, or changed the name, was to forfeit his life for it. ” 7 . Nevertheless, conflicts of interests were generated in the heart of the governing body. Therefore, some inspection mechanisms were a fictional restriction to supply so as to mitigate the effects of the surpluses that lower relative prices; all of which generated exasperation in the dynamic of the conflicts of interests. One of the legislative measures destined to mitigate such conflicts was the one provided by National Law 18.600, which addressed the situation of 7 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha , John Ormsby (1922 trans.), Penn State University's Electronic Classics, 2000, book 2, chapter LI.