Geographies of qualification in the global fine wine market

Abstract

Although questions of “quality” have gained prominence in economic geography, research has not fully explored recent discussions on processes of qualification in economic sociology. This paper has two key aims. The first is to introduce the way qualification processes have been conceptualized in recent pragmatism-inspired, process-oriented social science contributions, drawing particularly on work relating to actor-network theory, as well as on studies focusing on status/aesthetic markets. The second is to make this body of literature fruitful for a geographical perspective on product qualification in status/aesthetic markets. For the second aim, the paper empirically focuses on the global fine wine market. Since consumer products have increasingly become aestheticized in recent decades, an analysis of the geographies of fine wine qualification—an agricultural product that is also a key example of an aesthetic/status product—can provide insights into the dynamics of aestheticization in the food and beverages market more broadly. In order to advance a global perspective on fine wine qualification, this paper draws on qualitative empirical research in three wine regions around the world: South Tyrol (Italy), Salta (Argentina) and Marlborough (New Zealand). It argues that qualifying products is not only a highly reflexive and dynamic process, as contributions from economic sociology have revealed, but also, and crucially, a profoundly geographical matter.