ABSTRACT
The deployment of terroir through political domination, historical classism, and marketing strategies of profit-maximising entrepreneurs has been well-established in the literature. In a previous work, I have suggested that terroir can also express something deeper and I called this additional meaning, ‘deep terroir’ (Swinburn 2013). In this chapter, I suggest that deep terroir is a utopia, although it is a utopia with a specific definition. Unlike the notion of utopia that has been clustered together with terms such as ‘romantic’ and ‘idealist’, thereby implying a lack of connection with reality, I refer to Hage’s definition of utopia as an always-present ‘minor reality’. In this use, what we generally refer to as reality is, in fact, just the dominant reality, and there are always minor realities in which we are enmeshed. Taking seriously this argument, my chapter explores the existence of minor realities in the world of winegrowing, specifically why the winegrowers on the periphery of Geelong, a large post-industrial city in southeastern Australia, have been drawn to small-scale wine production when all economic analyses should warn them against it. I argue that what Geelong winegrowers are pursuing can, in part, be described as utopia. In many cases the relationship winegrowers have to the land can be seen of as spiritual and, as a result, ineffable. I suggest that small-scale wine production in places like Geelong offers a glimpse of something new for the people and the place, both seeking redemption. These qualities lie at the root of an alternative meaning of terroir as deep terroir. Small-scale wine producers – many of them – have searched for, and found, a home in this sensibility and in this utopia.
