Qualifying tradition: Instituted practices in the making of the organic wine market in Languedoc‐Roussillon, France

Abstract

AbstractWithin France, the Languedoc‐Roussillon region (now part of Occitanie) is home to about one third of the nation's area of certified organic vineyards. Each year, the world's largest organic wine fair, Millésime Bio, takes place in the city of Montpellier. This trade fair is an important site where organic wine is not only sold but also given meaning in the market, and importantly, differentiated from but made commensurate with conventional wine. In this paper, we examine processes and practices of ‘qualifying’ organic wine, including by means of relational processes of association and dissociation. Drawing on collaborative event ethnography and other qualitative methods, we focus on individual and institutional actors engaged in creating forms of commodified meanings that circulate with organic wine. In Languedoc‐Roussillon, these meanings reflect and reinforce a longer‐term so‐called shift to quality in wine production, yet also emphasize continuity over change, particularly through emphasis on ongoing role of artisanal, independent growers. We argue that qualification thereby works not only through association with independent growers but also by dissociation, specifically from Languedoc‐Roussillon's agrarian tradition of generic wine production and from the central role played by wine cooperatives in the social reproduction of the region's small‐holding grower class.