Wine Law

WINE TOURISM IN ARGENTINA 419 concept of wine routes 16 and “ enodestine ” has been born. A thematic or touristic route is a creation of a cluster of activities and features that encourages cooperation between different fields and serves as a vector to foster economic growth through tourism 17 and, therefore, necessarily requires a series of elements that supports the route as a travel location 18 . At the same time, work began to be done on quality guidelines for wineries and policies to develop and to promote the wine tourism product. The focus was on implementing strict management standards of quality. Wine tourism has been growing systematically and regularly since 2004, and Mendoza and Salta were the provinces that reached the greatest development. In 2013, based on data published by the Wine Tourism Observatory of Argentina 19 , there were 200 wineries in Argentina open to tourism, at least half of which were in Mendoza, and in that year only, the wineries that were open to tourism received more than one million visits. Accordingly, in 2017, more than 1.6 million wine tourists arrived in Argentina to visit vineyards 20 , of which 74% responds to visitors to the Central-Western area (Mendoza, San Juan, and Neuquén), 17% to Northern Provinces (Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, La Rioja and Catamarca) and 9% to the new wine growing region (Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos, Córdoba, Río Negro and Chubut). Today, there are nearly 300 vineyards open for visitors, with 165 located in the central-western area, 44 in the north-western area and 36 in the new region. Mendoza has more than 145 wineries opened to tourism. The services available at wineries opened for tourists include, among others 21 , winery tours, vineyards’ walks, wine shops and wine bars, wellness experiences, 16 See Caminos del Vino (https://caminosdelvino.org.ar/) , a fancy name given to the chance to access the universe of wine, by visiting museums, wineries and touristic attractions throughout several Argentine Provinces from North to South. 17 Briedenhann, J. & Wickens, E., “Tourism routes as a tool for the economic development of rural areas. Vibrant hope or impossible dream?”, in Tourism Management , no. 57, pp. 1-9, 2003. 18 Among others, an original selection of facilities and routes, an historical, cultural or natural heritage, homogeneity in the activities proposed in accordance with the type of tourist (i.e. age group, hobbies, mobility, economic capacity and culture), a well-founded statement of tourist facilities to be visited and the sociodemographic and cultural features of the tourist group to whom the route will be directed, a distance of at least 200 km and a maximum of 1000 km in total in a few days. See Briedenhann, J. & Wickens, E., op . cit . A remarkably interesting description of each of these Argentine wine routes can be found in Fidel, G., op . cit ., chapter 6. 19 Source : https://observatoriova.com/2019/11/el-turismo-del-vino-crece-en-la-argentina/. 20 If we consider enotourists’ origin, 39% are from Buenos Aires, followed by Cordoba (18%) and CABA (15%). In international ranking, Brazil accounts with 30,89%, being followed by the USA and Canada 27,44%; France 7,13%, and rest of America 6% and rest of Europe 5,83%, the rest of the World 5,18% and Chile 5,05%. 21 Fidel, G., op . cit ., p. 72.