The Wine Industry in Chile

Over the course of the past few decades the growth in wine production has been quite significant. Many countries in South America are producing more wine, and vineyards are growing at a steady rate. Chile, a country in South America is one of the largest wine producers within the continent, and due to free trade agreements with The United States has proved to be highly rewarding to both countries, however it was not an easy task in the beginning for this to happen.

Chile’s wine production has grown significantly, and “exports seventy percent of its’ wine production, making it the world’s most globalized wine industry” (Felzensztein, C. 2011). Those numbers are quite impressive, especially with some tough competitors such as The United States, France, and Italy. Chile did not start out as a large wine production country, and was originally a much more small-scale producer with little exporting. However, Chile’s environment and rural lands along with the concept of terroir has helped Chile to evolve into a mass wine producer. Terroir is “defined as the environmental conditions, especially the soil and climate, in which grapes are grown and that give a wine its unique flavor and aroma” (Dictionary, 2013). The wine industry is a very competitive industry, and there are many factors which influence that, such as place of origin, culture, and general interest of other nations.

The United States themselves are one of the largest producers of wine, primarily out of California, however the import of Chilean wines within The United States has seen dramatic increase over the course of the past few years. This is primarily due to President George Bush’s and Chilean President Patricio Alywin’s joint commitment to the Free Trade Agreement which occurred on May 13, 1992 (Bush, G. and Alywin, P.A. 1992). Although the joint commitment of this agreement was discussed in 1992, the implementation and signed U.S.-Chilean Free Trade Agreement did not occur until 2003 (USDA....