More than thirty years ago, Andreas Oestreicher read an article about phylloxera in Diario LARIOJA. It impacted him so much that he decided to investigate the topic in depth and present his thesis on the plague. It was the first of a number of studies in … which the historian and German teacher has investigated one of the most important points in contemporary Rioja history.
– Phylloxera arrives late to La Rioja. Why, seeing what had happened in other places, did he not react in time?
– It is surprising, on the one hand, that the then Province of Logroño was not better prepared. It must be taken into account that in France by this time the crisis had already been overcome and replanting with grafts on American feet had already been applied for two decades. On the other hand, seeing that something similar had happened in all other Spanish regions, the lack of effectiveness of the anti-phylloxera measures is no longer surprising. The initial lack of response to the plague and, above all, to implement the only remedy against it (replanting) has to do, above all, with the lack of political will and the chronic lack of funds on the part of the institutions. . There was a very strong contrast between the legislative measures against the plague and their execution.
– Why were Rioja farmers so reluctant to replant?
– On the one hand, the vast majority did not have the economic capacity necessary to replant their vineyards with American vines, nor the possibility of accessing credit. This means that replanting was not an alternative for them. At the same time, the American strain was seen not only as a remedy but also as the cause of the disease, since it was precisely with American strains that phylloxera was introduced into Europe.
– Can it be said that phylloxera changed Rioja winegrowing or are there more factors?
– Yes and no. It is clear that viticulture after phylloxera was very different from before. Firstly, because the new viticulture had other demands such as, for example, grafting on American root, more exhaustive tillage and also a greater need for fertilizer and anticryptogamic treatments. At the same time, the productivity of these new vineyards used to be well above the pre-phylloxera ones. But there are more and very important factors that had led to a profound change. On the one hand, the appearance of industrial wineries from the second half of the 19th century, but especially after the end of the trade treaty with France. And on the other hand, closely linked, was the crisis of overproduction that La Rioja suffered when it was no longer possible to export so much wine. But the impact of phylloxera in La Rioja (and in European wine-growing areas) was enormous, both on an agricultural level and on an economic and social level.
– Was phylloxera the cause of the massive emigration of Riojans?
– Once France had rescinded the trade treaty so favorable to Spain, which had made possible the mass export of Spanish wine, La Rioja entered a serious crisis of overproduction. The same fact, however, was very favorable to the industrial and modern production of wine, since the wineries now had much cheaper raw materials and an internal market free of competition from French wines. But, without a doubt, it was phylloxera that caused a massive exodus of small winegrowers and farmworkers bound for other places inside and outside the province and also overseas. The social cost of the phylloxera crisis was absolutely horrendous, not only in La Rioja, but in other wine regions.
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