Artículo #115
Symbolism in Chilean wine culture
Recent studies have allowed to corroborate an interesting pattern of archetypical ideas consonant with the most outstanding concepts that the Chilean people related with the national viticulture. Concepts that, at the same time, are related with the sense of belonging to a determined socioeconomic part of the society, educational level and age, which demonstrates a correspondence between what commonly relates, in symbolic terms, to the Chilean viticulture. The answer to such question has evidenced variations, not only between the conceptual significance nets around the historical development of the activity, but the evolution of the significance itself that the different social groups give it, depending on its social position. The main historical considerations, that ones that express more predomination among the Chilean people, there are those that say relation with concepts such as “traditionâ€, “antiqueâ€, “aristocratic sense†and “prideâ€, around a kind of European-like.
Texto destacado
Every symbol is a representation of an idea, which is identified by the society or, by part of it, socially accepted. Many symbols are present in the Chilean wine culture. The images and concepts with which this cultural heritage is associated, has different faces.
This is an image that is planned for the abroad. Likewise, the generalized identification with the landscape –valleys, mountains, clear and luminous sky and countryside — and the party, of course, celebration and ritualism, are other elements that give an account of how incorporated it is in the group of images with which it is habitually characterized in the rural world. Concepts like “qualityâ€, “health†and “originalityâ€, among others, have appeared recently in the population’s conscience as a result of the transformations experienced by the industry in the last decades. Thanks to new experiences with which today the wine is associated, there have appeared, among the consumers, new appraisals around a “social change†in the consumption and a kind of “democratization of pleasureâ€.
Considerations that are validated not only by the statistic evolution of the domestic demand in quantitative terms, but also by others with qualitative character such as the “eleganceâ€, “acquired taste†or “statusâ€, perceptions that undoubtedly have separated the wine from the old associations that used to consider it as a “second-classâ€, “vulgar†beverage and responsible for a great part of the alcoholism of the working class at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Nowadays, the general appreciations of the wine, connect it with activities such as gastronomy, hospitality and tourism, and the evolution itself of the Chilean viticulture has diversified its areas of significance and incorporated new symbolic elements to the image expected to show through publicity.
From the oenological discipline to the non-specialized people
New ideas that appear with naturally among a greater and greater number of Chileans and that, gradually, they have added technical notions that permeabilize from the oenological discipline to the non-specialized people, thanks to the initiative if the wineries that have dare to invest in training programs. In commercial area, some syntagmas have established such as “price-quality relationâ€, “country brandâ€, “business profitable†and “international prestigeâ€, as well as there have incorporated foreign nouns like “cluster†to define the goals of the industry.
Wine culture.
Concepts such as “potentialityâ€, “differentiationâ€, “sustainabilityâ€, “optimization†and “innovation†have already started to become habitual in the world of the specialized journalism and of the academic research, where, recently, there have added contributions of the anthroposophical agriculture like “organic viticulture†and “biodynamism†and of the ecology world like “green viticulture†and “wines with no carbon traceâ€. Aspirations of an industry that does not stop in its intentions of modernizing and positioning as a relevant actor in the international market, leaving aside the old considerations like “cheap wineâ€, "value for money wine" or “exotic wineâ€, common terms used to define the Chilean wine in the world.
Another interesting element that deserves to be distinguished here is the symbolic revalorization that has been seen in recent years due to the vestiges of the colonial viticulture, that in some way or the other they survived to the passage of time, to the French style of the industry during the 19th century and part of the 20th, to the difficulties characteristic of an activity that was sunk in a deep economic depression for a long time of the past century.
The heritage rescue that many winegrowers have begun with tourist purposes and some of philanthropic character, in some towns and villages of the country, have given unequivocal samples to be connected with towards the traditional culture that still alive. A new development possibility has been opened by social scientist who traditionally have dedicated to the colonial studies within the framework of the economic history and the cultural history, incorporating new epistemological methods coming from disciplines like the semiology, the social anthropology and the archaeology, focus on wine culture.