Argentina, a country which produces foods for the world, is currently in a paradoxical situation: theexportation of commodities is ever increasing, but poverty rates are also increasing. Agricultural policies have not yet solved the conflict arising from such a contradiction. They arecentered on an exclusively agricultural treatment of the situation and based on programs aiming atthe enhancement of production and productivity of those products which generate currency income,disregarding the fact that rural affairs involve other very significant dimensions. In this highly critical context, the Faculty of Agrarian and Forest Sciences of the National University ofLa Plata carried out a project with small wine producers from Berisso -a city 70 km away from theCity of Buenos Aires-, based on the activation of a typical product: the wine of Berisso coast. Theinvestigation project was developed from 1999 to 2009 and it allowed constructivist learning and the recovery of know-how and the territorial identity of traditional producers, by means of the recognition of their practices and the product's anchorage to a specific territory. Innovation was generated by the different actors, adapting their ways of producing and marketing to a successfulvaluation scheme agreed by consensus. This case is interesting to outline a methodology of activation of Localized Agroalimentary Systems(SIAL), defined as "organizations of production and services (agricultural production units, agroalimentary companies, service companies, gastronomic companies...) associated, by their characteristics and functioning, to a specific territory. Means, products, people, institutions, know¬how, alimentary behavior and relationship networks are combined into a form of agroalimentaryorganization in a given geographical space" (Muchnik J., Sautier D., Cirad-SAD, 1998). Localized agroalimentary systems take the specificity of the local and its interaction with the global asa starting point. The common objective of such contributions is to foster territorial developmentthrough the valuation of local products, especially food. The concept of system implies the interaction of different elements. The SIAL approach consists, in thefirst place, in the delimitation of such systems and the identification of their components, in order toensure an adequate methodological tool for the coordination of the elements and the stability andefficiency of the systems. SIAL include a wide variety of situations, from productions destined forlocal markets or self-consumption to productions destined for exportation (Muchnik, J. 2008). This paper presents a methodological proposal originated from practical work and focused not onrecipes established beforehand such as shortening chains, horizontal integration, production of specialties, etc, but rather on the understanding of what people are, know, want and can do.