From the cup to the lips | Tiel Genevieve

So much is said about the quality of wines in France. But how can we interpret the fact that so few people perceive it? Does this quality even exist? Is it a myth, an illusion? Should we instead consider that it is the lack of information, education, and taste training that is at the root of the lack of perception of quality? These two interpretations are common and fuel the confrontation between those who affirm the existence of a market for quality wines and those who deny it, denouncing a false hierarchy of wines based only on the snobbery of some drinkers, or even wishing or acting in the name of free competition, for example, for it to disappear. Instead of engaging in this controversy, by seeking to point out after so many others the "real" place of difference between quality wines, whether in the wine itself, in the social sphere, or in the imaginary, this book seeks to account for the activity that actors deploy to make this market exist, drawing on very diverse resources. It particularly emphasizes the active and fundamental role of often overlooked actors in this market: wine critics. Through a very heavy work of tasting and judgment, these critics qualify the wines - and then by comparing them, they produce differences that they sometimes manage to rank. But for a market for these wines to exist, they still need to share these judgments with buyers. Critics are not just judges, they are also proselytizers. They all start by informing buyers by publishing the result of their tastings. Some do not stop there and then offer their readers a lot of resources to overcome the barriers that, according to them, prevent them from feeling the quality of wines: distorted perception, influence, acquired bad tastes, inexperience. Thanks to them, drinkers who wish to do so can try to change their relationship with wine and are then enlisted in the work of qualitative differentiation of wines as amateurs, but also as customers. Ultimately, this work shows a market space in which action collectively oriented towards differentiating an objective quality, independent of consumers, their tastes, and preferences, far from leaving them helpless, paradoxically leads to increasing the diversity with which consumers themselves find their way to love wine.