Valuing the Unique by Lucien Karpik;

Author:Lucien Karpik;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

VULNERABILITY OF THE FRENCH FINE-WINES MARKET?

The fine-wines market in France is based largely on small producers and on barriers to entry that do not bar newcomers: small winemakers can be very successful. But alongside the small and medium-size wineries, one finds the most famous châteaux, whose development is the result of heavy technical investments and energetic marketing: these are on their way to the mega regime.

Upon this material basis, the fine-wines market concentrates the main characteristics of the authenticity regime: large numbers of products carrying a rich symbolism, numerous judgment devices, primacy of quality competition over price competition, relatively balanced competitive forces, critical pluralism, promotion of customer competence, activity and autonomy, and fairly strong consumer commitment. The close link between this market and the authenticity regime presupposes relative independence between the symbolic and economic logics.

The fine-wines market relies on two antithetical types of consumer: the expert and the connoisseur driven by a sufficiently strong aesthetic passion to invest thought, time, and money to arrive at the desired choices; and the layman, often thrown back on trial-and-error. And there is a large variation in between. But the fact that one in two consumers considers it hard to choose a wine gives a realistic idea of the ineffectiveness of the existing judgment devices. The persisting cognitive deficit explains that disappointing purchases are far from the exception. The extent of the cognitive deficit distinguishes the market of fine wines from most of the other markets.

Logically, a lack of competence should be compensated by judgment devices. When these are not sufficiently effective, the market can only fall back on the strength of trust. The collective belief in the symbolic value of wine, particularly in France, is deep-rooted. Wine is considered to be part of an identity linked to culture, art and, even, civilization; it may also be conceived as an adherence relation to a quasi world of pleasure or distinction. Whatever the case may be, belief must be robust and enduring, continually reinforced by the action of a cultural complex in order to explain why—for so long—so many buyers have engaged in practices whose repetition does not really reduce their difficulties and their wanderings.

The market’s strengths can become its weaknesses. France, which has for so long a time held the top position in the foreign markets, is now threatened by increasing exports from America, Australia, and Chile, to Great Britain in particular, but in reality, to the whole world—including France. Given the growth of the wine industry in new countries, some of this redistribution of international trade is inevitable. But as it happens, the evolution is all the more dangerous for France because the economic struggle also challenges the French model of wine qualification and thus the entire French system of production.

As the story is often told, the competitive struggle amounts to a conflict between small and medium-size producers and a few big firms, between the Old World and the New, between the appellation wines and the brand wines. Such a picture is only

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