The Regional Wine Trail: Identity Rhetorics and New Appalachian Landscapes

With over one hundred and thirty wineries established along the spine of the Appalachian region and with new wineries added to this list almost seasonally, we are witnessing a re-narration of Appalachia as a wine-tasting destination. And we see this new identity increasing in complexity with regional wine-making being narrated by its producers as synonymous with rolling vineyards, award-winning varietals, gourmet restaurants and bistros, eco-chic bed and breakfasts, working farmhouse inns, and (occasionally) echoes of European wine traditions. When we query the semiotics of the Appalachian wine region, we find vintners who are championing a new discourse that selectively engages with established rhetorical narratives of Appalachian place and equally entrenched narratives about elite wine-making, and we find regional winemakers who recognize that their challenge is greater than growing fine grapes and producing fine wines. As vintners work to rhetorically situate their vineyards into the broader wine narrative that is both national and international in scope, Appalachian wineries must work to overcome and reframe the region’s collective identity and insert that new identity into very old (and sometimes dissonant) narratives about winemaking and Appalachian cultures. Based on site visits to regional wineries; rhetorical analyses of the websites of Appalachian wineries; and interviews with wine makers, wine associations, and government officials involved in wine promotion, this paper will argue that the commodification of Appalachia via wine-making represents a new formation of regional place-making that is simultaneously local and global in posture