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Wine is not Coca-Cola: marketization and taste in alternative food networks

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Abstract

This paper engages with the question: how can the marketization of ecologically embedded edibles be enabled in alternative food networks? The challenge lies in the fact that ecologically embedded edibles, grown and made through primarily ecological rather than industrial processes, and using artisan, traditional, and quality practices, show variable and uncertain characteristics. The characteristics, or qualities, of ecologically embedded edibles vary both geographically and in time, challenging the creation of stable market networks. How can ecologically embedded wines be sold when there is no certainty about their qualities? In this article I propose that certainty around qualities is not as crucial an element of transactions as some authors suggest, and I draw on the case study of ecologically embedded wines to extract wider lessons of relevance to marketization of foods and drinks in alternative food networks. I suggest that an understanding of taste not as a fixed and unchangeable quality of people and things, but as a relational and reflexive activity between eaters and edibles, can offer a way of valuing uncertainty around product characteristics. Through a cultivation of a “taste for uncertainty” consumers’ bodies can become enrolled in supporting artisan, quality, and traditional production through their taste buds. Some pitfalls and limitations of this approach are considered in the conclusion.

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Notes

  1. See www.rawfair.com, therealwinefair.com.

  2. This elaborates on the idea of the disentanglement of objects as a necessary element of market transactions, discussed at length in a series of exchanges between Callon (2005) and Miller (2002, 2005).

  3. Some work on local food schemes hints at the necessary re-alignment between the bodies of consumers and the characteristics of foods (e.g., Purdue et al. 1997). Also, some studies hint at the breaking down of market relations due to uncertainty around qualities (e.g., Sage 2003, p. 53). However these points have so far not been further developed in AFNs literature.

  4. At the time of research no specific EU-level certification for organic or biodynamic wines existed. Most of the producers interviewed in this research complied with the rules of organic farming as defined by the EC Regulation 2092/91. They were also frequently certified by Italian organic food production bodies, such as AIAB and EcoCert. For an insight into the restrictiveness of these certification bodies in comparison to the mainstream wine production, please see Monnier et al. (2008). Importantly, these certifications focus on the exclusion of particular substances, and do not concern themselves with the typicality of flavors.

  5. All companies and persons in this text have been given pseudonyms. The original interviews were conducted in Italian, and transcribed and translated by the author.

  6. Cantiniere—literally “he who works in the wine cellar,” is how wine producers tend to describe themselves in Italy; the English term “winemaker” is used to refer to oenological experts or “flying winemakers” as described by Langendijk (2004).

  7. Lower-quality wines are also certified (Vino di Tavola, or Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT)); these certifications do not require taste conformity and only guarantee biochemical safety and territorial provenance of the grapes (for IGT).

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Acknowledgments

The research behind this paper was made possible by the ESRC-funded project “The Waste of the World” (RES-060-23-0007). I would like to thank Megan Blake, Peter Jackson, and Chris Kjeldsen for their support and constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I also extend my thanks to Annemarie Mol and an anonymous reviewer whose excellent insights have pushed my thinking on this subject.

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  1. Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, County Durham, DH1 3LE, UK

    Anna Krzywoszynska

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Krzywoszynska, A. Wine is not Coca-Cola: marketization and taste in alternative food networks. Agric Hum Values 32, 491–503 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-014-9564-9

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