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ABSTRACT
The narration of French wine culture in the twentieth century has been markedly influenced by the geographers Paul Vidal de la Blache, Roger Dion, and Jean-Robert Pitte. Their impact is notable in redefining terroir as not only a geological, climactic, and topographical phenomenon, but a space which is also dependent on human intervention and tradition, including social and economic infrastructure. In this article, I will trace the postwar construction and more recent deconstruction of the geographical discourse on French wine culture. It provides an overview of the context in which these geographers’ wine writing emerged, exposing the innovations and specificities of work by Vidal de la Blache, Dion and Pitte., This analysis is supplemented by contemporary reviews and subsequent referencing by historians and geographers. In conclusion, I will look at more recent criticism and engagement with Dion’s legacy and Pitte’s influence, to ascertain the pertinence and the status of their wine research today.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the reviewers and editors for their comments and advice for improving this article.
Notes
1. Demossier, Wine Drinking Culture in France; and Charters, Wine and Society.
2. Broc, “L’établissement de la géographie en France,” 545–68.
3. Darby, The Relations of History and Geography, 2002.
4. Verdier, “Les relations entre histoire et géographie,” 65–114.
5. The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert, Collaborative Translation Project.
6. Vaugondy, “Géographie,” 613.
7. Clerc, Géographies. The aggregation certificate is the prestigious national competitive exam for teaching in the public education system. An independent exam, specifically for geography, was not introduced until 1944.
8. Verdier, “Les relations entre histoire et géographie,” 70.
9. Nordman, “La géographie oeil de l’histoire,” 44–54.
10. Heffernan, “Geography, Empire and National Revolution,” 731–58.
11. However, Jean Brunhes, another discipline of Vidal de la Blache, had been appointed to Chair in Human Geography at the Collège de France in 1912.
12. Verdier, “Les relations entre histoire et géographie en France.”
13. Bourdieu et Passeron, La reproduction.
15. Nora, “Entre mémoire et histoire,” xvi–xlii.
16. On Vidal de la Blache, see Schirmer, “Le regard des géographes,” 350.
17. All translations are my own, apart from the quotes taken from Pitte’s Bordeaux/Burgundy, where I have used the published English translation.
18. Journal Officiel, August 5, 1905, no 210.
20. Parker, Tasting French Terroir, 160; Guy, When Champagne Became French, 43–44; and Trubek, Terroir, 22–24.
21. Schirmer, “Le regard des géographes français,” 347.
22. Schirmer, “Le géographe et l’expertise,” 91.
23. See for example Cholley, “Notes de géographie beaujolaise” and Blanchard, “La répartition des vignes.” On the underscores the rôle of Vidalian Henri Hauser, Professor in Geography and History at the University of Dijon (1902–1919) in distancing regional wine discourse in Burgundy from folklore, see Gilles Laferté, La Bourgogne et ses vins, 72–73, 109–10.
24. Itçaina, Roger, and Smith, Varietals of Capitalism, 65.
25. Dion, “Querelle des anciens,” 418.
26. Ibid., 431.
27. Dion, Histoire de La vigne et Du vin.
28. Ibid., xi.
29. Sorre, “Deux ouvrages sur la viticulture,” 189.
30. Ibid., 190.
31. Ibid., 189.
32. Broc, “Roger Dion (1896–1981),” 214.
33. Duby, “Une synthèse,” 126.
34. Febvre, “Vignes, vins et vignerons,” 286.
35. Lachiver, Vins, vignes et vignerons, 14.
36. Garrier, Histoire sociale et culturelle Du vin, 1995.
37. It should be noted that Dion’s work has not been translated into English, with the exception of the introduction to Le Paysage et le vin by K.I. Timoner.
38. See note 35 above.
39. Ibid., 14–15.
40. For a passing reference to “French geographers, including de la Blache [sic] and Brunhes were among the first to assess its [wine’s] modern development,” see De Blij, Wine, 2–3.
41. Stanislawski, Landscapes of Bacchus; Stanislawski, “Dionysus Westward”; and Stanislawski, “Seeds for the Flowers.”
42. Hiner, Townsend, and Lavy, “Harm J. de Blij’s 1983 Wine.”
43. Dickenson, “Viticultural geography,” 6.
44. Dion, 1959, vii, cited in Unwin, Wine and Vine, 1.
45. Pitte, “Le retour de la géographie,” 88.
46. Ibid.
47. Pitte, “Un géographe du vouloir humain,” 7.
48. Pitte, “Roger Dion, visionnaire malgré lui,” xv.
49. Pitte, Bordeaux/Burgundy, 58.
50. Ibid., 73.
51. Ibid., 95.
52. Ibid., 107.
53. Ibid., 176.
54. Schirmer, “Le géographe et l’expertise,” 92.
55. Ibid., 107.
56. In addition to Marcel Lachiver and Gilbert Garrier, many historians all over the world are working on wine such as Olivier Jacquet, Serge Wolikow, Rod Phillips, and Julie McIntyre.
57. Marion Demossier, Robert Ulin.
58. Jennifer Smith Maguire, Peter J. Howland.
59. Jean-Pierre Garcia, Frédéric Berthault.
60. Lavaud, Aubin, Roudié, and Hinnewinkel, “Roger Dion et le vignoble bordelais,” 19–20.
61. Cochran, “Review,” 87.
62. Guthey, “Northern California Through Economic Geography,” 180.
63. Dougherty, “Introduction,” 11.
64. Phillips, French Wine, notes with surprise that no book on French wine in English existed prior to his 2016 publication, but that Dion’s, Lachiver’s and Garrier’s works were exhaustive and untranslated.
65. “I Sucked at Geography.” Accessed January 4 2019. https://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/1334328185046_7492158.png.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jacqueline Dutton
Jacqueline Dutton lectures in French Studies and wine courses at the University of Melbourne. She has published widely on contemporary French and comparative literature and culture. Her recent writing on wine includes articles on European winemakers in Myanmar (2016), and on cross-cultural visual codes on French wine labels (2019) (http://academyofwinebusiness.com/). She is currently writing a cultural history of wine in Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Champagne, and co-editing (with Peter J. Howland) Wine, Terroir and Utopia: Making New Worlds (Routledge 2019).