Familiness as a form of value for wineries: a preliminary account

Abstract

Based on a small, exploratory study of three family-owned wineries in Victoria, Australia, the article examines how ‘familiness’ is constructed as a form of value. Drawing on work in cultural economy and economic sociology, we propose that familiness can be best understood as the outcome of a process of qualification that mediates between a winery's actual repertoire of properties and its cultural reception through the selective framing and legitimizing of family-related product properties as worthy points of attachment. There were five major themes around which the notion of family was clustered in the narratives of winery representatives and in winery marketing material: family as a key dimension of marketing strategy; the day-to-day involvement of family; the winery's family heritage; family as a symbolic quality; and the brand as family. Based on these findings, we argue that familiness may involve both indexical and iconic cues, that the material family is only one element in the construction of familiness as a form of value, and that familiness is legitimized as a point of attachment for consumers and employees through reference to authenticity, among other discourses.

Keywords:

• familiness
• wineries
• winery marketing
• Victoria, Australia
• value
• authenticity

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge La Trobe University's Faculty of Business, Economics and Law for funding to undertake data collection and transcription. In addition, the first author would like to acknowledge La Trobe University's Graduate School of Management for a visiting fellowship that facilitated such collaboration, and the University of Leicester, for a period of study leave that facilitated the process of writing.

Notes

Information on these various promotional campaigns can be found online. For example, Regional Heroes (‘wines that are from somewhere rather than wines from anywhere’) is one of four main ‘personalities’ in the ‘Wine Australia’ brand message (see, for example, http://www.wineaustralia.com); the ‘A+’ campaign, launched in June 2010, promotes the specificity of regional origin and the personal narratives of winemakers (see http://www.australiaplus.com); and the ‘Australia's First Families of Wine’ initiative, launched in 2009, highlights the 12 most prominent and longstanding winemaking families in Australia and their ‘over 1200 years of winemaking experience’ (see http://www.australiasfirstfamiliesofwine.com.au).

All of the respondents gave permission to be identified by name and by winery. For sake of clarity and brevity, we identify respondents by winery name alone.

‘Dick Smith’ is an Australian retailer of electrical goods; the chain was founded by Dick Smith, an Australian entrepreneur. When the business was later sold to Woolworths, the chain retained the Dick Smith title – implying a personal, family connection where one no longer exists.

Linked to a gold rush in the 1850s that brought emigrants and money to the region, winemaking started with English and Scottish settlers in the 1860s. Wine Australia (http://www.wineaustralia.com/uk/) provides summaries of the various regions' histories.