From development to dependency: Regional elite formation and transformation in la Rioja, Spain, 1860–1975 [1

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, the Rioja wine district of Spain emerged as a major supplier of fine table wines to both the national and international markets. Although Spanish wine enjoyed a boom in sales during this period due to the destruction of French vineyards by the phylloxera [2]. The Rioja not only exported wine in bulk but had a specific regional development with the founding of sixteen aging and exporting wineries (criadora exportadora bodegas) by the turn of the century. By the 1960s, this regional economic enclave was experiencing difficulties. True, the large bodegas of the Rioja remained among the best known Spanish wine pro? ducers. The vineyards, however, were owned by small and medium holding wine-growers. These vineyards were aged, unmechanized, and increasingly, uneconomical (Tamames, 1972) [3]. Both the bodegas and the wine? growers were facing severe capital shortages. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw a major wine boom for Rioja wine and a renewed interest in establishing and consolidating wineries. A major crisis in 1973 signalled the end of the boom and the region's wine? growers discussed dumping the years harvest in the Ebro river rather than "mal vender", sell below the cost of production. It also became increasingly evident that outside a handful of the traditional wineries, the bodegas were increasingly under the control of either Spanish capitalists with no historical ties to the region, or transnational corpora? tions. As capacity and production of the bodegas increased geometrically, one of the region's better known wines was stigmatized in a quality scandal. Many wine-growers, both large and small, began to wonder about the future of their enterprises. There is always a danger in talking about development in bipolar terms. The Rioja's economy has had numerous fluctuations and I would emphasize that such uneveness is a known but neglected feature of capitalist development (see Hymer, 1972; Mandel, 1976 for some exceptions) [4]. Anthropologists have long been aware of the regional and ethnic diversity in Spain, as well as differences in regional agricultural systems and economic development. Yet studies continue to be focused on the village rather than regional dynamics and the relationship of locality and region to the nation-state. Regions, I propose, can be defined by the uneven accumulation of capital and I will discuss two moments of regional development in the Rioja, one of autonomous development and the other of dependent development. I want to discuss the "regional elite," the owners of the major wineries of the Rioja, in the period of autonomous development and Timothy Parrish has a PhD in Anthropology from the Graduate Faculty, New School For Social Research.