Antoine de Tounens was a grand cru nutcase, a real-life Don Quixote who travelled to South America in search of adventure after reading an epic poem by the 16th-century Spanish writer Alonso de Ercilla. The French lawyer landed in the Chilean port of Coquimbo in 1858; two years later, citing the support of indigenous Mapuche tribes, he declared himself King Orélie-Antoine I of Araucanía and Patagonia, publishing a constitution and claiming dominion over a vast territory that stretched from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
De Tounens’ ‘reign’ lasted for 18 years. During that time, he was expelled, in 1862, after being declared insane by a Chilean court, but tried to return – mostly unsuccessfully – to his ‘kingdom’ on three further occasions. He died a pauper’s death in France in 1878 with no descendants. But to this day, there are still pretenders to his imaginary throne. They are known in French as ‘monarques et souverains de la fantaisie’ (monarchs and sovereigns of fantasy).
King Orélie-Antoine I was not the first Frenchman or woman to visit South America, of course. France had established a colony on the Falkland Islands in 1764, for instance. But, long after his demise, his story resonates down the centuries. It takes a degree of eccentricity and courage to move to the other side of the world and create a new life. And, as we shall learn, some of the French winemakers and entrepreneurs who have made their mark in Argentina over the past 150 years were considered crazy and ill-advised too.
THE ARRIVAL OF MALBEC
The fact is not always recognised, partly because they are vastly outnumbered by immigrants of Spanish and Italian descent, but the French have played a crucial role in the history and development of the Argentinian wine industry. Let’s start with arguably the most important Frenchman to visit the country, Michel Aimé Pouget, who arrived in the 1850s. Among the varieties the ampelographer brought with him from Chile was Malbec, much more widely planted in pre-phylloxera Bordeaux than it is
