ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book provides an interdisciplinary work which brings together a range of academic perspectives on the relationship of wine to culture and how cultural actors engage with it. Wine is a complex artefact. It has been around for 8,000 years of history, longer than most other human products, in which time it has been imbued with a range of multifaceted meanings. Additionally, it encompasses cultures of production, consumption and mediation. The book draws on the ancient, deep and persistent symbolic power of wine. In sum there is a profound ‘entanglement’ of wine and culture. It explores the stories of wine change that are not only because humans are shaped by the cultures they inhabit but because they themselves shape culture – both materially and symbolically.
