As it is a book, which aim is to celebrate the hundred and fifty years of life Los Cerros de San Juan Wine and Cellar, an advanced age in the viticulturist world, its transcendence goes further from the establishment limits. In a country that is only a hundred and eighty years of independent nation, Los Cerros de San Juan is part of the indissoluble national historiography.

The Wine Cellar grew with the country, and together, as faced mirrors that reflect to each other, the history of one and another fades in one only conductive thread that comes to nowadays.  As it’s easier to detect how much of National History is reflected on the particular history of Los Cerros de San Juan, we mustn’t lose sight of how much of the small history there is in the big one.

How is it possible to understand the Uruguay that lazily enters the 21st Century without paying attention to signs that come from the past! In a great extend we are what we were, and also what we couldn’t be.

How to understand the present without having a close look to the immigrants’ history that in different batches arrived to our coasts! How we do today to look ourselves unknowing what others, immigrants and criollos, made here!

Historiographic reformist trends from last decades pay special attention to the so-called “private sphere” of the common citizen. This book walks towards that direction, and as it is the written memory of a commercial enterprising that is a century and a half old, it is also, because of the mentioned, a great piece of the Uruguayan History.

The attentive reader could here appreciate how frontiers, among public and private spheres, get confused. How you can understand, since the recount of the fulfilled by the Lahusen German pioneers in the middle of the 19th century, that a country that was being born and developed with grief and joy typical of growing up.
They were the Lahusen’s and the ones that continued their legacy. It is the country of the generational traditions, a still young country in historical terms, that because of its proximity in time it allows us a familiar look, almost of grandparents and grandchildren.

This look is in this play. The different summon authors, since their specific points of view they coincide to reconstruct a memory that speaks of the land, of men on the land, of free animals and of yoked animals, of dreamers working from dawn to dusk, of enterprisers cheered by the intimate fire of the illusion, transmitting it to others, passing on their enthusiasm, convincing them, encouraging them to face challenges.

A history that comes up to our days and continues. A history that is expressed in wine bottles and in a brand, integrated to our affection universe. That’s not a coincidence, and the reading of this book will allow the search of clues which explain the singularity of a traditional brand, and the reason for the Uruguayan pride.