Taste and Knowledge: the Social Construction of Quality in the Organic Wine Market

A significant portion of the agricultural food sector today is geared towards developing sustainable and organically based products, contributing to a widely acknowledged ‘quality turn’ in food markets (Goodman 2004). Organic viticulture is booming worldwide, having increased threefold between 2004 and 2015 (Willer and Lernoud 2016). Consumers are willing to pay a premium for wines deriving from organic vineyards in the belief that they are healthier, tastier, and of higher quality, although the differences between organic, biodynamic, or sulfite free wines remains confusing for many (Amato et al. 2017). In exploring this paradigm shift, current research addresses the question of how organic wines can provide increased value given the lack of clarity about the full list of ingredient and qualities (Krzywoszynska 2015; Delmas et al. 2016). This question is fundamental to understanding the process of assessing qualities and singularities in the commercialization of wine, a central debate in the interaction between nature and culture pervading most scholarship on wine (e.g., Bourdieu 1984; Charters 2006; Smith 2006). The breadth of supply and the democratization of consumption in an ‘age of omnivorousness’ encourages the need to empirically establish the specifics and logics of differentiation in the wine market (Maguire 2016). Empirical studies demonstrate that standardized wines in saturated, mature, global markets fail to satisfy a group of consumers who are looking for a differentiated product and willing to pay for it (Aylward 2008, 2011). Consumers are willing to pay for organic wines even though some of them are rejected by the various quality control systems established by geographical indications of origin and other certification bodies, or in spite of their variability in flavor due to low levels of sulfur dioxide, an antioxidant that favors their stability and conservation (Teil 2013).This work was supported by the Grupo de EstudiosTerritoriales (Universida de da Coruña), R2014/018,Rede de Excelencia Novos Enfoques da Análise Territorial(NEDAT), funded by the SUG,Xunta de Galicia 2016-2018 (DOG 15/12/2016) and ED431B 2017/42Ayuda para la consolidación y estructuración de unidades de investigación competitivas y otras acciones de fomento en las universidades del Sistema universitario de Galicia, Modalidad Grupos con Potencial de Crecimiento, Xunta de Galicia 2017-2019.Peer Reviewe