With the early division of the estate, the eldest son, Pacífico, was in charge of the wine and olive businesses. With time, he became an unforgettable character in the province of Mendoza, since he marked another transcendental stage in the expansion and success of the company.

Pacífico Tittarelli was born in Mendoza on August 12 th 1910. He attended primary school at Bonino School and then finished secondary school. He also attended advanced studies at Quinta Agronómica, where he graduated in 1928 with the degree of enologist agriculturist. He was best student all through his studies. In this way, he added scientific knowledge to his father’s experimental knowledge.

He started his family when he married Paulina Riva and with the birth of his children, the twins Arnaldo and Enilda, Enrique and Luis. The eldest died very young and the other three stayed in charge of the diversified business that their father had started, now with the business name “Pacífico Tittarelli SAVO”- SA Grape and Olive Growing-.

Don Pacífico had some genius intuitions. He understood that many of the vast deserted areas in the cuyana region could become fertile through the use of the underground water, instead of using the water from the Mendoza river and its channels.

From his later knowledge and research, he became a specialist in edaphology, he bought great extensions of arid land that soon became fertile, proving his hypothesis to those who considered him crazy at that time.

He also set his mind in grafting and selecting local grapevine stalks with others of European origin, taken from the best productions in that continent. With time he obtained an increasingly better quality and greater yield production. So much so, that he reached a production of 600 quintals per hectare, when the average was around 250 to 300.

These intuitions were put into practice to the extent that his production in lands with high niter content in the area of Fray Luis Beltrán became famous. There he started growing olive trees and grapes and was soon followed by other producers, turning the area into one of the rural areas with higher yield in grape growing, as well as in olive growing and horticulture.

The need to increase his knowledge made Pacífico an authority in the field, and a permanently consulted student. Like his father, he too put special devotion to olive growing. His writings on the subject got to university classrooms. He was frequently consulted about the growing of olive in the country and in Chile.
His desire to expand the growth of olive trees was acknowledged with awards obtained by Tittarelli’s oils in international expositions and, obsessed by quality, he developed an olive sterilization method that was pioneer in the industry of pickled food.

“Olive oil, because of its excellent virtues, deserves a legitimate vindication – he wrote in a specialized magazine in 1967-. All those regions in which since unmemorable times olive oil is consumed, present an eloquent example of lower percentages of people with liver, heart and arteriosclerosis conditions and, consequently, a higher number of old people. Is there a more convincing argument about the benefits of this source of health?”

Among all the recognition Pacífico Tittarelli obtained, we can outstand that in 1954 the government of El Salvador named him consul of that country, also as a result of the many bonds he achieved to export the wine making and olive production, convinced that the placement of Argentinean product in the international market was the best mechanism to get genuine income.

For the community and the workers

The expansion of the Tittarelli company did not prevent Pacífico from dedicating part of his time to improve the wellbeing of the families in his community, whether they worked for him or not. One of the most noticeable actions was creating, together with other businessmen, The Electrification Rural Cooperative Sud Rio Tunuyán, which provided the first area of Rivadavia with electric energy. This initiative was also resisted by the local people until they understood the importance of this advance of progress they had been given.

Regarding the people who worked for him in his company, Pacífico Tittarelli was convinced that the increase in productivity was in direct relation with the wellbeing of the workers. He had a saying: “You cannot play the guitar at a funeral”.

So he built houses for his contractors and homing for the harvesters. He gave 10 hectares of cultivated land to his oldest workers. He built two primary schools that still work, named “Enrique Tittarelli” and “Teresa Bombarde de Tittarelli”, after his parents.

Bodega del 900, a tribute to wine

Pacífico Tittarelli had the chance to visit the big capitals of the world. From those visits and travel experiences set himself a project, to pay tribute to wine in a museum-restaurant that immediately became a meeting point for tourists from all over the world, Argentineans and Mendocinos willing to share an evening with good food, the best wine and, at the same time, try different varieties and international brands of this noble product of the land and man’s work.

“Bodega del 900” became an institution for the tribute of wine. It was opened on September 18 th, 1974. Its creator said to the reporters who interviewed him: “I thought exclusively in the fact that the world moves on and I made my contribution to that. Architect Francisco Pitella helped me with the building and decoration. The chandelier in the main room, consisting of 260 lights and 10 meter diameter big, is an iron handcraft made in our own establishment, by Argentinean and Bolivian workers. Everything has a meaning, the barrels are made of oak form the last century, the counter is stained with wine from that time, it is wood from the 1900. We are remembering, reliving those beginnings of wine making that were so simple and at the same time full of strange and beautiful things.”

The establishment included a cellar with 2 million bottles of wine; a corner made up of back parts of bottles pilled together, brick walls for the exposition of champagne and fine wines. A three meter diameter antique barrel was used as wardrobe. Next to the restaurant is the museum, with 40 types of grapes pickled in alcohol and a collection of winery antiques such as a German press, a French mill and other equipment.

“Bodega del 900” was so successful that a line of Tittarelli fine wines adopted the name.

However, in this establishment there was a bitter experience. When they were building it, in May, 1974, very critical times in the history of Argentina, Pacífico Tittarelli was kidnapped by an armed group. Following five days of captivity, he was freed after the payment of a big ransom.

As we can see, the unfortunate event did not stop the great worker and permanent creator, and so “Bodega del 900” became another one of his great creations. That is, in fact, the image and seal that he has left in the history of wine making and olive growing in Argentina. He died on April 24 th, 1978.