Geographical Turns and Historical Returns in Narrating French Wine Culture

Abstract

The narration of French wine culture in the twentieth century has been markedly influenced by the geographers Paul Vidal de la Blache, Roger Dion, and Jean-Robert Pitte. Their impact is notable in redefining terroir as not only a geological, climactic, and topographical phenomenon, but a space which is also dependent on human intervention and tradition, including social and economic infrastructure. In this article, I will trace the postwar construction and more recent deconstruction of the geographical discourse on French wine culture. It provides an overview of the context in which these geographers’ wine writing emerged, exposing the innovations and specificities of work by Vidal de la Bla..