In the Andean provinces of Mendoza, San Juan, Catamarca and Rioja viticulture attracts much attention, and the area in vineyards in 1901 was 109,546 acres, only 18% of which was outside the four provinces named.
In 1854 he produced Rioja, perhaps the most admired and the most admirable of all his works, and from 18J4 to 1856 he took an active part in the political campaign carried on in the journal El Padre Cobos.
By these plays and by Rioja and Consuelo he is entitled to be judged.
Thus in the central district of Val de Penas and in the Rioja region (situated between Old Castile and Navarre) in the north-east are produced red wines which in regard to vinosity, body and in some other respects resemble the heavier clarets or burgundies of France - although not possessing the delicacy and elegance of the latter.
The capital of the province is La Rioja (pop., 1904, about 6000), on the eastern flank of the Sierra de Velasco, about 1770 ft.