ABSTRACT
Wine, terroir, utopia: all three concepts take on different connotations according to historical traditions, cultural and class capitals, disciplinary biases, widely varied socio-political agendas, and even via scientific takes on nature. This renders them particularly rich terrain for intellectual enquiry within, and adjunct to, the increasingly globalized world of wine. All three are redolent with ambiguity, defy definition, and are constantly evolving in dynamic intersectionalities of practice, meaning, value and consequence. A consideration of wine via a utopian framework provides a means for understanding the constant evolutions and negotiations of nature and culture and the dynamic nexus of climate, topography, soil, plant genetics, vineyard and winery management, and the dialogic constructions of taste generated by producers, promoters and consumers. Winemaking potentially becomes utopian whenever it is perceived to strive for the current ideals of taste. Yet, while there is no question that wine exists as an object – one that is tautologically revealed as an ideal discursive of nature and culture whenever a wine is deemed fine – the situation with terroir is not so clear. The role of scientific evidence in viticulture and winemaking has grown to become a powerful force in reframing, frequently denying, terroir in the current era. Indeed, terroir’s current return to nature is a heretical slap in the face of western society’s overwhelming trust in science. Moreover, whether or not terroir is considered countercultural or mainstream now depends mostly on disciplinary positioning. And yet terroir resolutely remains a cultural product, and furthermore a commercial tool to sell wine’s ‘unique’ properties. Turning wine and terroir over and over again in an attempt to find some absolute objectivity is as redundant as attempting to do the same with utopia.
