Inside the book

The thesis stands as one of the earliest documentary records of the chemistry of Mendoza's emerging red-wine industry: by 1908 Malbec had already established itself as the leading cepage fino, the Cabernet family occupied second place, while most of the province's vineyards still consisted of criolla, descended from the sixteenth-century Listán Prieto introduced by the Spanish colonists. After an opening chapter, La Uva, introduced by Guyot's maxim that good winemaking rests on "una simplicidad primitiva," the work proceeds through Correcciones del Mosto (with reference to Argentine wine law no. 4663, Art. 3), Cubación and Descubación (illustrating the Cambon fermentation apparatus with an engraving of the vat, ca. p. 48, together with Andrieu's method), Residuos de la Vendimia, Las Heces, and Correctivos de los Vinos. A substantial section on La Vinificación en la Provincia de Mendoza records the region's principal grape varieties, with Malbec already dominant, followed by the Cabernet group, distinguished as gros Cabernet and Cabernet Sauvignon, while Pinot, Merlot, and criolla appear in smaller proportions. It also describes the Garolla grape crusher, open-vat fermentation, and the Andrieu process as employed at the La Germania winery. The analytical portion of the thesis examines dry extract, potassium bitartrate (cremor tártaro), tartaric acid, glycerine, and volatile acidity, the latter illustrated by a second wood engraving of an Erlenmeyer flask after Fleurieu (p. 88). Las Relaciones Enológicas reproduces the standards of the Comité Consultatif des Arts et Manufactures, while three folding tables present complete chemical analyzes of the 1908 harvest for Cabernet, Malbec, and other red grape varieties.