The science that studies and it defines the varieties of the vine e calls himself ampelografía and their marked progress of the last years allowed to identify better to the grapes cultivated in the Argentina .

The first grapes introduced to the country by the missionaries in the XV and XVI centuries were the common grapes, today denominated Creoles. Later, essentially in the XIX century, with the introduction of fine grapes from Europe , a mixture took place in the plantations, since the producers didn't give too much importance to the characteristics of each grape.

This way, the grapes coming from France, as the malbec, the cabernet sauvignon, the tannat and the merlot, in many cases mixed, and people simply denominated them as French" "grape, something even verifiable when one speaks with viñateros in Mendoza or in Salta.

The great family of the vine has many ramifications, but the branch "Vitis vinífera" it is the main one, because it almost produces hundred percent of the wine in the world. They exist around 5.000 cepajes types and about 40.000 names to mention them.

Comparing the data has more than enough grapes of High Quality Enológica - that are those that produce the fine wines of quality - arisen of the census of 1990 with those of the last one, carried out between the 2000 and the 2001 by the National Institute of Vitivinicultura (INV), is proven that in ten years they were planted (or they implanted) 33.000 new hectares, that makes that of the 201.000 hectares planted at the moment in the Argentina, almost 86.000 (43%) they are of fine grape, with a strong growth of the grape vineyards it tints (74% of the total). The rest of the hectares corresponds to common grape.

Next the surfaces of the main grape classes are given harvested in the country .