The stump, the tank, and the bottle | G. Guille Escuret

If the vine often appears as a gift from heaven or nature, wine, on the other hand, is the food in which our civilization most faithfully expresses its taste for hierarchy, natural advantages, and historical legitimacy. To the point that the world of wines resembles a society composed of an aristocracy of old lineage, a nobility of robe, and rootless commoners. A society that aims to be frozen by posing its customary rights as immutable laws. This apparent duality between natural production and socialized product strongly complicates the study of vineyards and wines. From winemakers to oenologists, as well as economists, historians, and agricultural technicians, a multitude of widely contradictory viewpoints clash and stumble over the socio-cultural components of the definition of wines. It is these components that this book seeks to recognize: without their explicit intervention, any discussion on the world of viticulture and winemaking is condemned to remain partial and biased, which implies significant practical repercussions. The first part of the study goes from wine to vine and from the general to the particular. It explores the specific characteristics of wine from the perspective of our culture and their impact on production operations. The second part, conversely, goes from vine to wine and focuses on the complex evolution of a terroir: the Hautes Corbières. It analyzes the social conditions of the contemporary rise of a wine and the obstacles it faces. Through the numerous correspondences that exist between these two opposite paths emerge the questions from which a discussion could depart if it wanted to surpass a narrow professional approach. Georges Guille-Escuret is associated with the research team "Differential Food Anthropology" at CNRS. He presented a thesis in ethnology for his third cycle on the evolution of the viticultural communes of the Hautes Corbières (EHESS, 1982) and has published several methodological works on the link between natural and social sciences.