The Business of Wine

Chile and Argentina sit on either side of the Andes and both sell wine to the world, with very different strategies. Students study the vineyard as a business, from soil, water and climate change to brands, exports and family ownership.

What students will learn

  • Explain how climate, soil and water shape a wine region
  • Compare the export strategies of Chile and Argentina
  • Analyse drought and climate change as business risks
  • Understand family, cooperative and corporate ownership models

Day by day

  1. Day 1, Santiago & Maipo: Wine at the edge of the city. Arrival and a historic Maipo Valley winery on the edge of Santiago.
  2. Day 2–3, Colchagua: Inside Chilean wine. Santa Cruz and the Colchagua Museum, a family winery and a large exporter side by side, and a field day on soils, irrigation and drought. The story of Carmenère, lost in Europe and rediscovered in Chile in 1994.
  3. Day 4, Casablanca Valley: Cool climate and the coast. A cool-climate valley near the Pacific, and how Chilean wine reaches the ships.
  4. Day 5, Mendoza: Across the Andes. By road over the Andes to Mendoza, past Aconcagua.
  5. Day 6, Mendoza: Malbec and the oasis. Luján de Cuyo and the irrigation canals that turned a desert into Argentina’s biggest wine region. A session with agronomy faculty in Mendoza.
  6. Day 7, Uco Valley: Wine at altitude. Vineyards above 1,000 m in the Uco Valley, foreign investment and the bet on altitude.
  7. Day 8, Mendoza: Departure. Flights from Mendoza.