KD2 Wine Slides Fin.ppt

“Am I getting a little Brazilian woman?”1- marks of power and distinction in the discourse of wine : 

“Am I getting a little Brazilian woman?”1- marks of power and distinction in the discourse of wine Nigel Bruce, Hong Kong University 1Alternative title: “It tastes like a gentleman who has lost his temper for the first time in his life” Clive Coates. 1995

Social and gender distinctions in the discourse of wine : 

Social and gender distinctions in the discourse of wine Primary text: Emile Peynaud: The taste of wine: The art and science of wine appreciation (Trans.1987 [Fr. 1983]) Peynaud seems to offer a hierarchical and male-centred construction of tasting knowledge and aptitude the properties of wines: structure, taste & smell the expectations and aspirations of his (differentiated) audience to have access to that knowledge and ability

Bourdieu, cultural capital & wine : 

Bourdieu, cultural capital & wine The social order is inscribed in people’s minds via the hierarchies & classifications inscribed in objects - especially cultural products In Bourdieu's terms, people's tastes in wine are the result of their acculturation, and signify their social position or the "cultural capital" they aspire to. Both our preferences for - and our discourses on - wine form part of our cultural capital, and ... serve the purpose of hierarchical discrimination.

Bourdieu on dominance : 

Bourdieu on dominance Bourdieu suggests a particularly interesting polarity between dominant groups who have the luxury of "ease" - who esteem mental over physical strength - and those they dominate: "they reduce the strength which the dominated (or the young, or women) ascribe to themselves to brute strength, passion and instinct, a blind unpredictable force of nature, the unreasoning violence of desire, and they attribute to themselves spiritual and intellectual strength, a self-control that predisposes them to control others...to conceive their relationship to the dominated - the "masses", the women, the young - as that of the soul to the body, understanding to sensibility, culture to nature"

Wine and social distinction – examples : 

Wine and social distinction – examples Bourdieu offers a contrast between the bourgeois businessman and the intellectual educator: the intellectual (as ascetic) - who still seeks to “keep a few presentable wines in the house” (Beaujolais). The advertising executive – in a discourse exuding authority - waxes more freely on the role wine plays in his life: “(I am) something of an expert.. (My) colleagues can see I know what I’m doing. I don’t go for some miserable Cahors for example… Hardly anyone knows how to choose wine, so as soon as you know a little bit about it, you look like someone who knows how to live” [1984: 300] [Problem: business – science – intellectual – capital – how clear is their role in a dominant-dominated paradigm?]

Dominant = male (minus intellectual) : 

Dominant = male (minus intellectual) Bourdieu applies his dominant-dominated polarity to social and economic power, contrasting intellectuals with industrial and commercial employers – the bourgeoisie – who ascribe to intellectuals “properties entirely situated on the side of the female – lack of realism, otherworldliness, irresponsibility” (but cf. Latour: is this a failure to see these traits in one self, and only in “the other” group?) Bourdieu suggests we can see dominant discourse where the “temporally dominant” explain to intellectuals “how the (natural) world works” (or where Finance Departments explain budget cuts to academics! (cf. Latour: natural facts vs social values).

Peynaud’s mission : 

Peynaud’s mission In his Preface, Peynaud addresses the 4 groups of reader he distinguishes, in ascending order of the "knowledge" he ascribes to them of the field of wine. Peynaud aspires to: teach wine drinkers to “talk about wine” furnish wine producers with a “systematic approach to tasting”, “extend the wine merchants vocabulary”, and offers an exhortation to oenologists to “annexe and develop the field of tasting” - next: marks of distinction in Peynaud’s discourse

Distinction/dichotomy: “brain” & “brawn” : 

Distinction/dichotomy: “brain” & “brawn” Peynaud distinguishes "physical pleasure" from the "intelligence and competence" required to appreciate wine, and the "considered act of tasting" from the "simple reflex action of drinking". He asks the "amateur" reader to decide if he drinks wine "with traditional Rabelaisian extravagance" [as “un champion quantitatif”], or as a "connoisseur", and if wine is to be "swilled and swallowed" or "sipped and savoured" (12).

Distinction and civilisation: metaphors of conquest : 

Distinction and civilisation: metaphors of conquest Peynaud’s mission involves persuading disparate communities to learn how to taste “properly”. He attributes to wine a "civilising" role, presenting wine as emblematic of the more desirable traits of western European culture. E.g.: "Wine develops as does our civilisation, primarily in terms of taste but also in terms of technology" (230). "In the end for us wine lovers is that the civilisation of wine survives" (231). "the civilising power of wine is conquering the world"(233);

Distinction and morality/patriarchy : 

Distinction and morality/patriarchy Peynaud=s civilising theme mingles with hierarchy and an aristocratic form of patriarchy. “personification” is… “used to define a wine’s places in an elite and hierarchical vinous “society”. A great wine is presented as a nobleman. Classified wines (that is, wines which have class (sic)) are described as noble, rich, and with breed, are distinguished from banal wines which are uncouth, common, vulgar, plebeian, poor, …unpretentious (sic)”. “Chaque fois que vous achetez un vin indigne, vous portez tort “à la cause du vin” (1983: 1)

Making social distinctions : 

Making social distinctions Glutton gourmand gourmet gastronome De Coquet on Adiners@: French national drink false fine wines the good wines the fine wines Coste on wine types: Amateur wine producer wine merchant oenologue Peynaud: on wine communities: - 4-part social distinctions Peynaud, Coste & de Coquet

Distinction as hierarchical classification : 

Distinction as hierarchical classification Peynaud on de Coquet’s hierarchy: "the gourmet considers what he chooses to eat as an intellectual pleasure, and the gourmand.. enjoys everything that is good. The gastronome/epicure whose eating and drinking habits develop on a strictly scientific basis, would only be interested in the greatest of fine wines - monuments, museum pieces, classic masterpieces. And finally the glutton, staunch consumer of quantity, unable to control his tastes and inclinations, will simply soak up the mediocre (wine)." (91)

Discourses and practices : 

Discourses and practices Wine Communities’ wine vocabulary reflects their practices: Amateurs tend to use fruits & other natural scents & flavours Merchants will need to use a combination depending on whether they are buying or selling the wines Wine producers’ discourse tends to feature a structural or architectural vocabulary Oenologists favour the language of chemistry Vedel’s terms (see diagram) reflect the last 2’s preoccupations, offering few analogies with the natural substances we tend to associate with bouquet or aroma (honeyed, bitter, sweetish). They are predominantly anthropomorphic, cast in our own image and, as we see below, often heavily gendered. See Vedel’s diagram of the spectrum of wine characteristics

Gendering your reader – by omission : 

Gendering your reader – by omission In discussing the talents of the perfumers at Grasse, Peynaud uses the neutral “they” - the only reference to women lies tellingly in a passage where Peynaud is exhorting the reader to “organize your own memory bank – rub a leaf between your fingers, smell a flower, sniff crushed fruit, dip your nose into a cook’s collection of herbs, spices and condiments…learn to recognize a woman’s perfume” (1987: 189). One has to suppose Peynaud visualizes himself writing for a male audience.

Gendered trajectories : 

Gendered trajectories As we’ve seen, gendering surfaces more explicitly in Peynaud in the labeling of characteristics of wine and its tastes and smells. In The Logic of Practice (1990), Bourdieu developed a synoptic table showing a distribution of gendered characteristics, images and metaphors in use in western discourses, which he suggests can be read either in terms of the vertical oppositions (wet/dry, top/bottom, right/left, male/female, etc.), processes (life cycle, marriage, birth, farming), or movements (opening/ closing, coming/going, etc)” (Bourdieu, 2001: 10). See the following “synoptic” diagram

Is it OK to talk feminine….? : 

Is it OK to talk feminine….? Do Peynaud’s discourse and Bourdieu’s findings & model point to what Dorothy Smith might call the androcentric enterprise of “objectifying knowledge”, the predilection for medico-scientific or construction metaphors (rather than sensual or sensory ones)? We can see this “hard” discourse among the experts – what about the “amateur”? One amateur posed this question in a Web thread: “ Yes, there are some women who are into wine. But look at the ranks of men who communicate on this board. It reads like a Who's Who of testostorone …Think about it. Men are MORE into wine. (But...) It seems strange for the male creature to be so interested in a subject that has such a feminine side to it, y'know- Bouquet, Floral aromas, Silkiness, Spice, Perfume, Elegance, etc.. What gives?” [Barry] - 1 answer (among many) : “Last time I checked, there was an "x" chromosome along with the "y" in our genetic makeup!! … [Chris]

Some conclusions : 

Some conclusions I’ve looked at how the discourse of wine exhibits the tensions and hierarchical perspectives of authoritative discourse to be found in any discipline or discourse event. I have found a tension throughout Peynaud's book between acknowledging the impossibility of pinning down the butterfly of taste in a linguistic aspic, and yet a mission to pursue that grail a concern to respect freedom of expression and yet to resist the anarchy of the absence of an agreed comprehensive vocabulary A concern to distinguish among his audience in terms of knowledge, aptitude, and class(ification) A highly androcentric discourse & construction of the world of wine

Bibliography : 

Bibliography Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge Bourdieu, P. (2001) Masculine domination. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Translation of La domination masculine, 1998, Editions du Seuil] Coates, C. (1995) Review of Domaine Leroy’s Nuits St. Georges Les Vignes Rondes 1993, in The Vine, No. 122, p. 100. Peynaud, E. (1983, 2e) Le Gout du Vin. Paris: BORDAS. Peynaud, E. (1987) The Taste of Wine. London: Macdonald Orbis. Trans. Michael Schuster Smith, D. (1990) Texts, facts and femininity: exploring the relations of ruling. London: Routledge.