Our perception of wine has more to do with its commercial history than we think
As an agricultural product, we think about wine as linked to a place and sometimes to an individual producer.
- As an agricultural product, we think about wine as linked to a place and sometimes to an individual producer.
- And paradoxically, many of the cultural ideas which shape how we perceive wine today actually stem from its history as a commercial product.
- I am also a wine lover and have been running the website sommeliervirtuel.com with my brother Mathieu for over 10 years.
- In this first article, I demonstrate how some of our cultural conceptions of wine actually arose from the commercial nature of the product.
The importance of place
- We can talk about a Bordeaux, a Burgundy or a Chianti without having to add that we are talking about wine.
- It was through trade, especially over long distances, that the place of origin of wines became important and significant.
The utopia of terroir versus the realities of trade
- Trade also helps explain why wine production became concentrated in certain regions and not others.
- Official speeches (guidebooks, wine books, laws) claim that this is because of the quality of a specific region’s terroir, according to the idea that wine production is concentrated in the places most suitable for quality production.
- In fact, trade is what explains how vineyards came to be concentrated in certain regions, but not others.
From agricultural to luxury product
- In these markets, wine was not considered an agricultural product.
- Wine was a luxury product, reserved for certain social groups.
Bordeaux and the English market
- The Bordeaux vineyard developed in response to demand from the English and Dutch markets, which, in turn, controlled the region and its trade starting in the 17th century.
- In this context, it was the English market that drove consumers and merchants to pay specific attention to vintages, as well as growths, and the crus of Bordeaux, that is to say the “Châteaux,” such as Ho Bryan (Haut-Brion) or Margose Wine (Margaux) whose first mentions are in English.
- The famous classification of Bordeaux wines of 1855, still in force today, was created at the universal exhibition in Paris on the basis of wine prices that were established by the English market.