Towards a Cultural Economy Paradigm for the Australian Wine Industry

Abstract

The twenty‐first century wine industry is a very different one from that which dominated operations in the 1980s and 1990s. Production, distribution and marketing of wine are now colonised by an array of complex and intersecting dynamics. Primary among these is a growing demand among consumers for value‐added qualities. Particularly in mature markets, standardised, commodity‐style wine is failing to satisfy an increasingly educated consumer base. What is required now among a number of New World producers is an understanding of the way in which wine’s cultural and economic qualities can be woven into a more enriched fabric. This would not simply add cultural elements to an economically oriented product. Rather, it would weave individual and community values, passion, care, identity, and terroir together with the more tangible aspects of production, distribution, price‐points and marketing.

Such an enriched ‘fabric’ will be referred to throughout this paper as the cultural economy of wine. It will be argued that the Australian wine industry, as a case study, must not only reconfigure its operational structure to reflect these qualities, but must change the way it thinks collectively about its product if it is to remain competitive in an increasingly complex environment.

Keywords:

• wine
• industry
• cultural economy
• SMEs
• localisation

Notes

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2. B. J. Sommers, The Geography of Wine, Plume, New York, 2008, pp. 135–8, 253.

3. S. Charters, Wine and Society: The Social and Cultural Context of a Drink, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2006, pp. 25–209.

4. H. Johnson, Wine: A Life Uncorked, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2006, pp. 38–45.

5. I. Pretorius, ‘The tailoring of designer grapevines and wine yeasts for a market‐directed and quality focussed wine industry’, paper delivered at the Institute for Wine Biotechnology, Department of Viticulture and Oenology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, 2003, p. 1; B. Croser, ‘Brand or authenticity’, Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Journal, December 2004, p. 22.

6. D. Aylward and M. Clements, ‘Crafting a local–global nexus in the Australian wine industry’, Journal of Enterprising Communities, 2, 1, 2008, pp. 85–7.

7. Ibid.

8. Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation (GWRDC), Annual Report, Adelaide, 2007, pp. 2–12.

9. Aylward, 2006–07, op. cit.

10. D. Aylward, ‘Innovation lock‐in: unlocking research and development path dependency in the Australian wine industry’, Strategic Change, 15, 2006, pp. 361–72.

11. P. Matthews, Real Wine: The Rediscovery of Natural Winemaking, Octopus, London, 2000, pp. 55–80, 110–50, 210–35.

12. Ibid.

13. K. Lynch, Adventures on the Wine Route, North Point Press, New York, 1998, pp. 58–9, 110–55, 189–212.

14. R. Gibson, ‘Filtration: the game has changed’, Wine Business Monthly, Adelaide, 2008, p. 58; Matthews, op. cit.

15. Ibid.

16. Lynch, op. cit., pp. 110–22.

17. M. Ritson, ‘Tesco warns on wine boom crash’, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 December 2007, p. 27.

18. T. Atkins, ‘Four bottles to toast Australia’s wine wizard’, Observer, 17 September 2006.

19. Aylward, 2006–07, op. cit.

20. Winemakers Federation of Australia, Directions 2025, Adelaide, 2007, pp. 2–12; Croser, op. cit.

21. Ritson, op. cit.

22. P. Fuller, ‘Champers tastes may kill golden goose’, Wine Business Magazine, April 2008, p. 12.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. For example, D. Gaiter and J. Brecher, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine: New and Improved: How to Buy, Drink and Enjoy Wine, Random House, New York, 2002, pp. 32–6; Atkins, op. cit.; Ritson, op. cit.; F. Carter, ‘The Australian wine industry could become a victim of its own successful marketing’, Melbourne Age, 2005, p. 31.

26. Winetitles, The Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Directory, Adelaide, 2008, p. 16.

27. L. Stanford, ‘Export volumes down’, Wine Business Magazine, April 2008, p. 10.

28. Ibid.

29. R. Ulin, ‘Invention and representation as cultural capital’, American Anthropologist, 97, 3, 1995, pp. 519–24.

30. W. Echikson, Noble Rot: A Bordeaux Wine Revolution, WW Norton, London, 2004, pp. 2–24.

31. A. Duncan and D. Greenaway, ‘The economics of wine—introduction’, Economic Journal, 118, 2008, pp. F138–9.

32. Aylward, 2006–07, op. cit.

33. D. Kladstrup and P. Kladstrup, Champagne: How the World’s Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times, Harper Perennial, New York, 2005, pp. 78, 86, 93, 119.

34. G. Geursen and R. Rentschuler, The New Wave: Entrepreneurship & the Arts, Melbourne, 2002, pp. 5–6.

35. See Craig Calhoun, Edward LiPuma and Moishe Postone (eds), Bourdieu Critical Perspectives, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993, pp. 25–9; J. Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993, pp. 46–9.

36. J. Holden, Capturing Cultural Value: How Culture Has Become a Tool of Government Policy, DEMOS, London, 2004, pp. 3–9.

37. S. Ritnour, ‘Economics and culture. By David Throsby’, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 6, 2, 2003, pp. 103–6.

38. H. Hoegh‐Guldberg, The Arts Economy 1968–1998: Three Decades of Growth in Australia, Australia Council, 2000, pp. 2–12.

39. D. Throsby, Economics and Culture, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001, p. 4.

40. Ibid.

41. Kladstrup and Kladstrup, op. cit.

42. Aylward, 2006–07, op. cit.

43. Aylward and Zanko, op. cit.; Aylward, 2007a, op. cit., pp. 385–98.

44. Johnson, op. cit., pp. 16, 35–45.

45. O. Gergaud and V. Ginsburgh, ‘Natural endowments, production technologies and the quality of wines in Bordeaux. Does terroir matter?’, Economic Journal, 118, 2008, pp. F142–4.

46. Kladstrup and Kladstrup, op. cit., pp. 97–9.

47. Aylward, 2006–07, op. cit.

48. S. Tepper, ‘Creative assets and the changing economy’, Journal of Arts, Management, Law, and Society, 32, 2, 2002, pp. 159–68; Throsby, op. cit.

49. Kladstrup and Kladstrup, op. cit.

50. Ibid.

51. Croser, op. cit.