Wine Diversity: Paradox or Economic Innovation?

Abstract

This article examines the extreme differentiation within the wine market, which economists view as an aberration. Drawing on empirical material from previous studies and historical texts, it argues that the wine market’s organization has evolved over the 20th century towards a split between two different economic regimes: one ‘standard’, which conforms to and is conformed by economics, and one alternative, which is more akin to the art market. Their differences pertain to processes of qualification (Callon) or materialization (Slater, 2002), with the former leading to a stabilization of quality and the latter to its unstabilization. The peculiarity of this unstabilized-quality market affords insights into the continued growth of the number of wine references on the market, despite its economic oddity.