Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Red and White (Red and White: The Globalization of Wine in the Anthropocene)
Reporting period: 2020-11-02 to 2022-11-01
This is not the first time the vines and their communities have faced similar challenges. Prohibition in the US had tremendous implications for the production, consumption, and taste of wine. While the industry eventually recovered, and even thrives, American wine was transformed into a product unrecognizable to consumers of the previous generation. These changes eventually transformed vineyards across the globe and embedded new practices within other national traditions. Understanding how the wine industry responded to both the implementation and the repeal of Prohibition has lessons for dealing with natural disasters and climate change in the 21st century. It also has lessons regarding the reshaping of the landscape and the transformation of the cultural heritage of wine producing regions in the wake of globalization and industrialization. Red & White: The Globalization of Wine in the Anthropocene (Red & White) uses state-of-the-art and innovative historical techniques to understand how climate change and industrialization/globalization are not only reshaping landscapes and communities, but also the culture surrounding and flavors embedded in wine. The overarching question Red & White asks is how has science and technology been leveraged to expand the wine industry globally in the 20th and 21st centuries and how has that shifted the taste of the wines as the climate warms?
Given its interdisciplinary focus and contemporary implications, Red & White will appeal to a number of diverse communities including academics, industry professionals, hospitality managers and the general public to better understand how the climate crisis is reshaping the industry and the flavor of wine across the globe.
Over the course of my MSCA fellowship, I took courses in digital environmental humanities, GIS, leadership, project development and grant writing. I also conducted research on in Bordeaux, New York City, the Piemonte and Chianti regions of Italy, and the Monticello District of Virginia. I arranged secondments in Chianti, Italy (1 week), Alba, Italy (1 week) and Crozet, Virginia (6 weeks), virtual with Battonage—Women in the Wine Industry (10 meetings). I also learned to fly a drone and how to use drone images in GIS systems. In addition to the training aspects of my project, I also researched and wrote a 3 draft chapters toward a book manuscript 1) on the history of wine at the University of California Davis, 2) on the globalization of Bordeaux wines in the post war period and 3) on wildfires and wine taint. Additionally, I researched an wrote an article on terroir, which is under review.
Results
I have 3 draft chapters of a book, organized 2 symposia one of which resulted in a special issue for Environment & History on the senses and the environment which I am co-editing with Gerard J. Fitzgerald and submitting a chapter on the concept of terroir, editing a second special issue on wine in the Americas and will write the introduction. I gave 11 conference papers and 1 keynote address. I had 10 weeks of secondment and participated in 6 industry events including ProWein in Dusseldorf, Germany. I also re-established the Food, Agriculture, and Sustainability working group and organized the Graduate Student Symposium through it. I organized a text seminar for sharing early work and participated in two reading groups.