Growing Vines in the Mapuche Heartland: The First Report About the Vitiviniculture of the Araucanía Region

The vineyard cultivation in Chile is moving south and the surface of planted vines in the Araucanía Region has considerably increased in the last two decades. Despite this, the vines have been established with scarce technical support. This chapter aims to provide some guidelines about the vitiviniculture of the Araucanía Region. The vineyards are mostly planted in the oriental hills of the Nahuelbuta Cordillera and in the Intermediate Depression, specifically in the viticultural zone of Malleco valley. The local viticulturists define as the most important problems in the vine production the lack of specialists, the high incidence of spring frost and the low production levels. The soils have a clay loam to silty clay loam texture, moderately acid to acid pH, low organic matter, deficient in Mg, scarce cation exchange capacity, and high Al saturation, which decreases the availability of P to plants. Bioclimatic indices allow to classify Malleco and Cautín valleys as intermediate and cool climates, respectively. The risk of frost temperatures is lower in Traiguén (2 days) than in Maquehue and Carillanca (8 and 13 days, respectively). The number of days with T > 30 °C increased 0.22 days by year, whereas the number of days with T < 0 °C increased 0.278 days by year in Maquehue. The reference evapotranspiration (ET0) during the growing season increased from 784 to 948 mm and in the warmest month of 1.3 mm/day in the 1960–1990 and 1985–2015 periods. Cautín Valley allows an earlier harvest in Pinot Noir than Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc (from 932 to 945 Growing Degree Days). The grapevines grafted onto 101–14 Mgt rootstocks presented higher veraison to harvest duration than ungrafted grapevines, which may favor wine typicity. This information provides the first data about the vitiviniculture of the Araucanía Region.