Mostaganem Province
From Barbarossa's corsair base to France's wine colony—Algeria's top export by the 1930s. Independence killed viticulture; the port now ferries cargo to Valencia.
Mostaganem traces wine from the Phoenicians through global irrelevance. The Romans found wild grapes here and cultivated them. Centuries later, an 18th-century British traveler claimed Mostaganem's wine "was not inferior to the best hermitage" and rivaled Portugal and Spain. By the 1930s, wine was Algeria's top export—over half the country's total export value—with 90% landing at French ports like Marseille.
Before wine dominance came naval power. The Ottoman admiral Barbarossa captured Mostaganem in 1516, transforming it into a corsair base and commercial port. The Spanish Fortress still standing in the city testifies to the era when Mediterranean powers contested this coast. When the French arrived in 1833, only 3,000 people remained—the population had collapsed after Ottoman decline.
French colonization rebuilt Mostaganem around viticulture. Independence in 1962 began wine's long decline as Algeria's Islamic identity conflicted with its colonial cash crop. Today the port handles over one million tons of cargo annually, with regular ferries to Valencia, Spain. The vineyard economy is largely gone, but the infrastructure remains: 220 hectares of port, 1,147-meter quay, and the geographic fact that Mostaganem is northwestern Algeria's natural gateway to Iberia.