Codifying Consensus and Constructing Boundaries: Setting the Limits of Appellation D’Origine Controlˆ Ee´ Protection in Bordeaux, France

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Page126 PoLAR:Vol.37,No.1

Erica A. Farmer Smithsonian Institution

Codifying Consensus and Constructing Boundaries: Setting the Limits of Appellation d’origine controlˆ ee´ Protection in Bordeaux, France

Legal geographical indication (GI) regimes are increasingly considered a promising tool to protect cultural heritage from outside appropriation. Yet such regimes have origins in a much more specific context: the structures and practices of wine-making in the elite wine regions of France. This article examines the relationships between different types of communities and structures involved in boundary-making under the prototypical GI system, appellation d’origine controlˆ ee´ (AOC), in its place of origin, Bordeaux. Here, legal boundaries are simultaneously reinforced, created, and defined by the values and priorities of the society that created them. In this article I consider geographical indications in Bordeaux not only as communal rights but as communal emanations, both to highlight the idiosyncrasies of AOC as a legal system and some of the problems and possibilities status suggests for the future of intellectual property rights. [appellation d’origine controlˆ ee´ , boundaries, communal rights, wine, intellectual property, geographical indications, traditional knowledge]

The term geographical indication1 (GI) is an umbrella term for a complex system that brings place-linked products into broader intellectual property frameworks. Although such regimes have growing significance globally, the impetus for this type of legal protection began in France, under the appellation d’origine controlˆ ee´ 2 (AOC) system, which was first codified in 19191.GiventhehistoryoftheAOClegislation,the resultant legal system is quite embedded in its sociocultural context, particularly in the role of communal factors and the importance of social values as expressed through practice. The importance of these connections to social context is manifested in factors such as the localized specificity of the legal balancing test of “local, loyal and constant usages” and the level of sociocultural detail necessary for the creation of the cahier des charges, aformalizedlegaldocumentwhichliststhevariousattributes required to define the products3 protected under the law. Due to the sui generis nature of AOC protection in Bordeaux, the preexisting system of regulating wine production works independently as well as alongside the legal regime set up for such protection. As AOC-style systems move further from their origins, however, that is less completely the case, a fact that carries implications for the diffusion of systems based on the French model outside France,4 and Europe, to new products and contexts.

PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Vol. 37, Number 1, pps. 126–144. ISSN C 1081-6976, electronic ISSN 1555-2934. ⃝ 2014 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/plar.12054. May 2014 Page 127

Bordeaux’s AOC system provides an important case study of such regimes, as the primary historical and contemporary model for GI systems. This article looks to the relationship between sociocultural structures and actors in Bordeaux’s AOC law through an analysis of the role of boundaries and boundary setting within the system, particularly as the law seeks to represent standards of shared practice and consensus around the social meaning of wines produced in the region. Legal boundaries and objectives can often be simplistically portrayed as imposed upon or external to social ones, but in the case of AOC in Bordeaux, I would argue that it is more fruitful to look at the legal system and social system as operating alongside each other, functioning at different scales as well as interacting in complex ways. The legal system functions to reinforce social boundaries through its imprimatur, while also acting as other and extraneous to social regulation at the same time. The navigation of actors between legal and social registers brings into question the politics and interactions that constitute the process of setting standards and building consensus around these important boundaries in both social and legal contexts. This article begins with a history of some of the sociocultural and legal context surrounding the creation of the 1919 AOC legislation, before continuing to a discussion of some of the ways that social and legal boundaries are built both under the law and alongside it. Next, I turn to a longer ethnographic case study based upon a recent controversy over membership in AOC Margaux in order to bring out some of the dual legal and sociocultural aspects of the AOC system in practice. Through this analysis I highlight the fact that AOCs in Bordeaux are created not only as communal rights, but also as communal emanations, articulating around ideas of belonging and the shared (though contested) social construction of meaning in protected wines. I conclude with a discussion of some of the implications that arise from the types of conflicts and concerns raised in my cases, and point to some practical considerations that may complicate the spread of AOC-inspired GI regimes around the world.

Geography and the Basics of the AOC System The French AOC regulations are based around a number of boundary-setting activities, both in regard to product definitions and in a geographical sense. Practically, the law requires the creation of a dossier called the cahier des charges,whichrequires 1) a delimitation of the region of production, 2) the creation of a map of the area linked to the appellation, and 3) an itemized list of production factors, including permitted grape varieties, sugar and alcohol content, yield, and any relevant special techniques to be used in production. In combination, these three elements set out the meanings of place and practice for the particular AOC. Although the creation of geographical boundaries and product definitions under the law operate in tandem, the present article will focus on the former. Geographically, Bordeaux is located in southwestern France, in the region of Aquitaine, department of Gironde. It is home to a population of approximately 230,000 people, and serves as the seat of a broader area that encompasses a number of wine regions, which represent a staggering total of 60 different wine-related AOCs, Page 128 PoLAR:Vol.37,No.1 anumberonlyeclipsedinBurgundy.5 The region centers around the Gironde estuary, abodyofwaterthatisalsothemajorportforwineexportforthearea.Thereare two primary styles of red wine produced in the region, differentiated both by their locations of origin as well as their predominant grape varietals. The wines of the left bank (of the Gironde) are marked by a predominance of cabernet sauvignon in their blends,5 having a “bigger,” more tannic taste, where those of the right bank highlight the merlot grape and its fruitier flavor. Both areas are marked by high prestige appellations, notably AOCs Margaux, Pauillac, and St. Julien on the left bank, and AOCs St. Emilion´ and Pomerol on the right. The Sauternes region, known for its sweet white wines, is located to the south of the city. At a basic level, AOC status is based on linking together a location, a history of practice, and a reputation around wine. This is legally represented through the usages locaux, loyaux, et constants (local, loyal, and constants) test, which highlights that linkage between product and place, and it is by proving each of these individual elements that the right to an AOC is established (Farmer 2011). Each of the individual factors that comprise the test combine to represent the value protected by legal status. Producers applying to belong to or create an AOC must thus be able to align wines which are reputationally recognizable in geographically specific places with values and community perceptions of long standing within their local and neighboring communities. Doing so means that community perceptions shape AOCs in a fundamental way, by recognizing and defining what they are, while also policing their boundaries through social mechanisms and local politics. The first article of the 1919 AOC law states that in the event of the misuse of an appellation with “usages locaux, loyaux, et constants”agroupofproducerscanbring aclaimtostoptheinappropriateusageoftheAOC.Theprimaryconcernofthelaw is to stop misuse, and even today the principle response to the perceived harm of violation is the complete removal of the offending product from the market. The law states that the case is brought to a civil tribunal in the region where the infringement occurs. This requirement is meant to further capture a sense of the influence of the reputation of the wine by taking advantage of local perceptions of product status and definitions before expanding to inquire if that reputation is perceived similarly in surrounding communities and elsewhere. One section of the law that figures prominently in early legal cases in the Bordeaux region is Article 7, which creates the rule that decisions about AOC status must apply to all similarly situated parties. This means that a single producer cannot argue against a neighbor making a product under the AOC, provided that the other requirements for status are met. It is a shared right for the community, not something an individual can have total control over. This principle is firmly reinforced by a series of early cases6 that allowed extensions of AOC designations to spread to neighboring communities because of individual producers who claimed historical links to the AOC style. May 2014 Page 129

To preempt some of these challenges, prior to application a group of producers who seek to apply for an AOC must come to a certain level of consensus regarding both regional and definitional boundaries so as to avail themselves of protection under the law before they complete the cahier des charges. The structures of the system reinforce the fact that AOC rights in France are intimately linked to shared community rights, not individual interests. Applications for AOC status customarily come from the regional wine syndicates that link producers, and only collectives that have been in place for at least six months can instigate the process (Institut national des appellations d’origine 1985:27; hereafter INAO). They agree on the description that will constitute the cahier des charges and submit those definitions as part of the application. The AOC system is managed by the Institut national des appellations d’origine (INAO), an organization created in the 1930s to allow for smoother administration of the system established under the 1919 law. It too links the syndicates together, and uses them as regional adjudicators of quality in both official and unofficial capacities. The INAO falls under the shared authority of the Ministry of Fraud and the Ministry of Agriculture, both of which automatically accept decisions made by syndicates and confirmed by the INAO (interview, December 10, 2009). When I asked an INAO official about the process of acquiring AOC status, the first thing he mentioned was that one would need a group of producers to begin the process. “What would happen if you were just one guy?” I asked. “Then we’d tell you to go and get a trademark instead,” he replied (interview,7 December 10, 2009). There is even some precedent to reading the AOC law even more broadly, construing the phrase habitants et proprietaires´ (inhabitants and proprietors) to apply not only to producers of AOC products but to non-producer residents of AOC-linked communities as well (Visse-Causse 2007: 32). The mere possibility of such a reading argues even more strongly in favor of the law’s communal nature. This group-based orientation also derives from the legal and political realities of French labor politics. The AOC system grew up alongside a system of labor that involved unions, syndicates, and cooperatives of various kinds.

In the domain of Appellations d’origine the role of syndicates remains all-important. The system in place rests essentially on the existence of a very strong and responsible syndicalism. In effect, the Appellation is not the juxtaposition of miscellaneous private and dispersed interests, but the result of efforts of all the producers of a region to define and produce an original wine specific to its terroir. [INAO 1985:27]

This vision and construction of the AOC system serves to further reinforce the ability of shared values to be enshrined in law, and these local organizations maintain a great deal of power within the wine industry. They spread information about viti- and vinicultural practices and business, link producers together in the use of techniques, and in many cases allow for the continuing strength of the industry. “In the Bordeaux Page 130 PoLAR:Vol.37,No.1 region, excepting the Sauternes region, the most important viticultural regions are also the regions most marked by cooperatives” (Roudie 2001:124). Caves cooperatives (cooperative cellars) originally developed out of communal politics at the national level, and were established with the goal of bolstering small producers through resource sharing and they receive state support through subsidies and differential tax regimes. They allow access to better equipment and technology than their member producers could individually afford, and historically were based on equal sharing of profits from sales (Chevet 2009: 261). Production in the Bordeaux region includes a total of 76 cooperative cellars, responsible for 23 percent of the overall total of wine produced (264). Administratively, these levels of community involvement manifest in the governmental policing of AOCs. Although administered by the ministries of Fraud and Agriculture and the INAO, changes in the cahiers des charges for AOCs must be agreed upon at the level of the AOC membership, and the governmental ministries must either affirm or deny the decisions reached. A basic veto is all the government ultimately retains over the precise rules of practice in any AOC. Officials retain no possibility of altering the details of the formal dossier for the AOC once it is submitted, and must simply accept or reject the producing community’s decisions (interview, December 10, 2010). Policing of AOC quality thus primarily falls to local syndicates, which enforce the legal standards for community membership at that level. Fundamentally, the community is bound up in the very nature of the law, as reputation and agreement are the initial sources of the distinctive value that defines wines under AOC standards in the first place.

Creating Legal Boundaries through AOC As Kolleen Guy notes in the case of Champagne, wine in Bordeaux was also “used to delineate social boundaries and create solidarities” (Guy 2003:12). Legal regulation of appellation names grew out from a conjunction between producer interests and existing sociocultural practices. The 1919 AOC legislation emerged out of the aftermath of the phylloxera crisis of the late 19th century, a period in which a foreign parasite decimated the vineyards of Europe. In the wake of the destruction of vineyards all over France, the constriction of supply was followed by overproduction (124). This led to lower wine prices due both to the greater quantity of wine available, but also because of perceived lower quality than had historically been produced, due to changes in production in the wake of the crisis (Gironde Archives n.d.). In an effort to mitigate the effects of these concerns, many producers began to resort to less-than-honest means of promoting their wines (interview, December 22, 2009). One frequent tactic was to conceal or misrepresent a wine’s origins, either by using regional names from more prestigious areas, or even more blatantly by using the names of properties that had not actually produced the wine at all (Gironde Archives n.d.). These were not idle strategies either. Even as early as the 18th century, wines from higher prestige regions were able to command prices twelve times higher than those of their neighbors (Kehrig 1886:77). May 2014 Page 131

As a consequence of these factors, and due to its long-standing reputation for quality, Bordeaux was the region to which many wines were falsely attributed, a fact which began to raise local concerns about external opinions about the quality of wines which were really produced in Gironde. The earliest seeds of legal protection of AOC thus grew out of efforts to protect against fraud. In the view of the contemporary French Agricultural Ministry, “this possibility of selling under a prestigious geographic appellation products of a mediocre or even defective quality, would neces- sarily amount to what could be called ‘sabotage of appellations of origin’” (Ministree´ de l’agriculture 1937). These types of concerns were seen to operate at both the levels of domestic and international export, and foreign perceptions were also very much in the mind of policymakers. As another policy document argued, while looking toward the American export market, “in this market, inferior products can create a disastrous effect, and with the impulsive character of the American people, we would never be able to recover that first impression. It is consequently necessary that the impression is, by all accounts exceptional, and measures should be taken to that effect” (Gironde Archives 1934). The fraud statutes of 1905 and 19078 were intended to address some of these concerns about reputation and misrepresentation, but the laws were not strong enough to protect from the real harms of misattribution. Thus producers began to agitate in favor of legislation to assure the quality of French wines in general, and Bordeaux wines in particular. Instead of simply resorting to existing regimes of fraud protection, the 1919 AOC law drew upon social conventions about wine production as a starting point. For centuries, convention within France had associated certain styles of wine and reputations for quality with the proper names of communes, subregions, and regions that produced them (Visse-Causse 2007:5). Place consequently served as a proxy for stylistic values within a region, as well as perception of quality in relationship to its neighboring areas. Known as appellation d’origine (AO) or appellation d’origine simple (in contrast to appellation d’origine controlˆ ee)´ 9 the system was not formally codified under law, but did serve to differentiate among the variety of wines circulating on the market. Along with the importance of these regional reputations, the uniqueness of places was also marked by the valorization of the concept of terroir,whichencapsulatesthe unique confluence between natural factors and the products that come out of those natural conditions. A French term sometimes argued to be untranslatable, terroir refers to the ways in which natural (often climactic or soil-related) factors create the unique particularities that mark the products that come from the places where such conditions are found, for example, the way the qualities of the grass on which a cow grazes influences the cheese ultimately made from its milk. The term comes from the wine industry and has spread to foodstuffs more generally. In the case of wine, it has to do with the way the characteristics of the grapes used differ because of the soil, weather, and other natural conditions specific to their place of production. Despite the naturalized ways in which the term can often be manipulated, however, it is marked by a great degree of social construction and manipulation within hierarchies of power Page 132 PoLAR:Vol.37,No.1 as well (Demossier 2011; Jacquet and Laferte2005;Trubek2008;Valceschiniand´ Torre 2002). In the case of appellations, terroir acts as another of the holders of value and uniqueness of AOC wine, along with the sociocultural reputations built around the wines as products. Coupled with the important role of terroir and the strength of the linkage that concept creates between the physical place of production and its natural qualities as expressed in the wine, AOC served as a socially recognizable marker of the value held in the wine as product. To these elements was added a legal balancing test premised on linking these sets of factors. The key phrase “usages locaux, loyaux, et constants” was created by early proponents of the legislation as a way to bring together these elements of locality and reputation into a justiciable form (Farmer 2011). Defining the physical space associated with the protected term would come to be at the heart of AOC protection, with the reputational factors aligning to verify the social meaning of place in relation to the product. From the earliest days of this legislation, the value of belonging to a recognizable AOC has always been of considerable economic value. Early documents, however, show that the names of appellations have not always been as clear, particularly in the statements proprietors were required to submit under the early years of the law (Gironde Archives n.d.). Certain names, however, have always been more privileged than others, and it is not surprising that many of the early debates around this kind of belonging are based in the high prestige sweet white wine region of Sauternes, located just south of the city of Bordeaux. Wines from this area are some of the most highly regarded and expensive in the region, due to a confluence between the terroir as aligned with the social construction of place and reputation in the area. Even given this important role for terroir, however, the role of social construction in setting the boundaries of Sauternes is equally evident. Although it takes its name from the town of Sauternes, the appellation has never been limited solely to the town’s political boundaries. Today, it encompasses not only Sauternes itself but also the neighboring villages of Barsac, Bommes, Fargues, and Preignac. This difference between the political boundaries of Sauternes and the political and legal boundaries of the AOC highlights tension between the social, the natural, and the justiciably legal. Legal challenges over the early years of the law added communities to the AOC through evaluation of cases under the locaux, loyaux, constants test. Thus, even in the face of naturalized qualities of terroir defining the “best” sweet wines of the region, the AOC is very much a result of negotiation and qualitative balancing. Many in the region are quick to claim that the hype of Sauternes can overshadow the quality, and when speaking to connoisseurs or locals one may well be pointed toward less well-known neighboring appellations for nearly identical quality at a far lesser price.10 An additional example of this type of social policing comes in the case of St. Emilion,´ another of the most high prestige subregions of the area. There are a group of neighboring communities that use the term “St. Emilion”´ in their names, due to the fact May 2014 Page 133 that the name St. Emilion´ is actually part of their town names (e.g., Lussac-St. Emilion´ or Montagne-St. Emilion).´ In terms of their wines, however, these locations are nonetheless considered to be separate appellations outside of and differentiated from the more highly regarded AOC St. Emilion.´ Yet, by way of an example, in the United Kingdom these AOC Lussac St. Emilion´ bottles and others from the “villages” (as they are called by the French) tend to be indiscriminately intermingled with higher-value AOC St. Emilion´ bottles in supermarkets, and even in more elite wine shops they are sometimes priced and featured as equivalent. This is precisely the sort of “passing off,” or trading on the reputation of others, that the law was designed to combat. Social policing of reputation and notoriety thus have a very real role in adjudications through the use of the courts’ balancing test. Amorerecentandcontinuingnegotiationaroundthesetypesofdesignationsand geographic boundaries is the 2009 creation of the Cotesˆ de Bordeaux AOC, which consolidated a number of earlier AOCs that shared coastal terroirs (such as Cotesˆ des Francs, Cotesˆ de Blaye, and Cotesˆ des Fronsac). The consolidation was primarily commercial, on the assumption that the number of these different and similarly named coastal areas was bewildering for consumers; it grew over time, having started from an attempt in the 1970s by the Conseil interprofessionnelle du vin de Bordeaux (Interprofessional Council of Bordeaux Wine)(CIVB)11 to group the different regional appellations into “families” so as to help in public education efforts (personal communication, January 12, 2010). Overall, in the context of AOCs, questions about boundaries constitute a major issue, particularly through their ability to define and differentiate. Even as these discussions provide a space for consensus and dissent about practices, reputations, and the limits of conceptualization, they also serve as a locus for belonging. AOC status is fundamentally linked to community interests. Rights are held communally, defined by producer groups, and reflect a consensus about values; and once status is granted, conforming to standards gives producers the ability to belong, allowing AOC protection to possess powerful possibilities to connect producers. Such an orientation is not completely unproblematic, however, as the following examples will show. As a further example of how the legal system is used in the advancement of social battles for belonging, I present the recent case of the controversial conflict that led to the inclusion of the Chateauˆ d’Arsac in AOC Margaux.

Battles over the Boundaries of AOC Margaux Today Chateauˆ d’Arsac is a historic property with a long reputation, located in the commune of Arsac, one of the five communities permitted to belong to AOC Margaux. Origi- nally owned by members of the nobility, the chateauˆ has changed hands a number of times and possesses a somewhat checkered history, including an 80-year decline that began in the mid-19th century, over 30 years of abandonment, and a major expansion (Meric´ 2000:135). Page 134 PoLAR:Vol.37,No.1

The vagaries of history aside, however, the wine of the property has long been prestigious. It was a 4eme` cru12 in 185513 (82) and has long been linked to the cru bourgeois14 classification as well. By 1919, wine from the property was sold as Chateauˆ d’Arsac-Margaux (116). In terms of status, however, it is here that the plot thickens. Somehow over the next several decades, that explicit linkage to Margaux vanished. Meric´ notes a “first mystery: why in the harvest statistics of 1939, Chateauˆ d’Arsac no longer mentioned its Margaux tag from 1920?” (120). And from there, things were only to become worse in terms of its status. AOC Margaux was formally created in 1954 and its boundaries delimited in 1956. At that time, the owners of the property made no claim for status, and in the end Chateauˆ d’Arsac was not included, instead being relegated to the less prestigious neighboring AOC of Haut-Medoc.´ I was told that one reason the property lost status was because it was not planted at the time (interview, November 26, 2010). Meric´ counters, however, with another option that is perhaps even more interesting in the context of legal regulation and AOC. “And there is found the second mystery: Chateauˆ d’Arsac was out of operation. But were there still vines? Certainly, but it missed, to put it very precisely, the declaration of the new viticultural harvest” (121). Was it in the end a certain laxity in the observance of rules and definitions that led to the later drama? The present controversies over the chateauˆ date back to the 1980s, when it was acquired by the family of (now negociant15)PhilippeRaoux.Thewholeaffairstarted when the family discovered that AOC Margaux was in the course of revision. Knowing that the property was omitted from the AOC in the 1950s and arguing that its omission had nothing to do with the quality of the terroir, Raoux argued that the chateauˆ should be permitted to be part of the appellation. In August 1986, he went to the INAO on behalf of the chateauˆ and asked to be included, and did the same at the Margaux syndicate. Because everyone was on summer vacation, he was told to come back in September. In the interim, he found a number of references to the property in books on the historical appellation, becoming more and more certain that the omission of the property from the original AOC boundaries was not a considered decision, but merely a historical accident. Yet in September, when he went back to the president of the INAO and the syndicate, he said, “[T]hey told me that it was Haut-Medoc.´ My father had been trompe´ [tricked or mistaken]” (interview, November 12, 2010). There was no discussion, and that was expected to be the end of the story. With Raoux, it was not. Instead he went to a specialty lawyer to contest his exclusion. Ultimately, it became clear that the only way to include Chateauˆ d’Arsac would be to change the borders of AOC Margaux. The boundaries of the Margaux appellation are linked to an 18th century map of the area which demarcated the places that were planted at that time Chateauˆ d’Arsac is on that map.16 The syndicate was well aware that a historical claim to AOC status for the property was strong but ultimately decided to emphasize the role of terroir May 2014 Page 135 in their assessment. In support of that position, the syndicate requested a soil test, and discovered that most of the property is sable noir,whichIwastold,uponfurther explanation, “is a kind of soil that is only good for growing bread” (interview, 26 November 2010). The investigation found that there is a portion of the property that is geographically similar to the terroir of AOC Margaux, but it constitutes only a tiny fraction of the overall property. These were the positions of the parties in June 1988 when Raoux requested a revision of the 1956 delimitation. The case traveled up to the court system to France’s highest court, the Conseil d’Etat´ ,whichannulledthesyndicate’srefusaloftherevisionin 1993. Ultimately, 40 acres of the property were added to AOC Margaux (the rest of the property remains in AOC Haut-Medoc).´ Dissent remains today about the final categorization of the land, with some feeling that Raoux’s political power affected the outcome, as well as the proportion and sections of the estate that were granted status. ArepresentativeoftheMargauxsyndicatetoldme,“Everyoneinvolvedwiththe assessments was very competent, but it was very political too. Monsieur Raoux is very well connected. He knows a lot of people. It went all the way to the Conseil d’Etat ....That’sthehighestcourtwehave. . . it’s like . . . . It’s like appealing to le ciel [God]” (interview, November 26, 2010). For Raoux, once the dust finally settled, “[T]he war was over, twelve years later” (interview, November 12, 2010). But that war was not without its casualties. “The other producers thought of it as a collective violation,” he commented. “Things are better now, but it was really bad at first. It was hostile but ultimately it was a good result.” Raoux feels that the other producers were threatened by the accession and did not want to rethink the borders. This is clearly the case, though those in charge claim it was not solely reticence, but also a desire to preserve the quality and historical status of the appellation. The incident still rankles, and seems to have changed practice as well. “Thus ended auniqueaffairsincethecreationofBordeauxAOCs,andsomequestionedifit was not a dangerous precedent” (Meric´ 2000:134). The Margaux syndicate certainly seems to think so, and the whole scenario is seen as suspect by those outside the community as well, with the drama also receiving interest in the international wine press. If nothing else, it has upset the status quo. I was told, “[AOC] Margaux has really reorganized around land lately—especially post-lawsuit. After Chateauˆ d’Arsac everything changed. Everyone got reassessed” (interview, November 4, 2010). It seems that in the face of incidents like this, actors are often searching for something objective to hold on to. The new movement is about justifying geologically the decisions being made about AOC boundaries. The appellation has hired a ge- ologist to map the area’s terroirs and to define the attributes of “true” Margaux properties. “After all,” they argue, “it’s the soil that speaks,” even as they admit any potential declassifications will be a problem because of history and politics. Prob- lematic issues of authenticity aside, the reality, of which all are well aware, is that Page 136 PoLAR:Vol.37,No.1

“everyone wants the most wine possible within the appellation” (interview, November 26, 2010). Iarguethatdespitetherecoursetolitigationinthiscase,thefundamentalissueisone of belonging. Raoux’s first recourse was to the syndicate, and thus to the traditional regulatory structures of both wine and AOC, and it was only upon its refusal that he made the decision to go to the courts. Although the legal system was called upon to intervene, the desired result was not to invalidate the AOC, but rather to gain status within it. I additionally note that this type of behavior does not appear to be an isolated phenomenon in the Bordeaux region. In relation to a dispute around one of the associated sociocultural systems that affirms wine quality in the region, the cru bourgeois,Iaskedaninformantwhyshethoughtthelitigantswhobroughta case had gone to the court system to invalidate the classification. “They had run out of other options. They’d already attacked the [classification] president and poured petrol in his vineyards” (interview, November 29, 2010). Here too, the first line of defense appears to be tied to social methods of policing and regulation—in this case intimidation and bullying—before the technicalities of the legal system become involved. Another more subtle case of social policing of industry practices comes from Chateauˆ Couhins,apropertyintheuniquepositionofbeingownedbytheFrenchagriculture ministry (INRA) (for use as a test property) as well as a member of the prestigious regional appellation Pessac-Leognan.17 Here too, a lack of adherence to community values led to shunning and poor relationships. As a scientific space purchased by the French government in 1969, Chateauˆ Couhins has a different mission than that of its neighbors, who have an undivided focus on the social and wine-making norms of the subregion. INRA had different objectives in its control of the site, for example, to testing scientific methods to im- prove local wine production—–rather than a singular focus on high prestige wine- making per se. This dissonance can perhaps be highlighted by the explicitly util- itarian nature of the initial purchase, which was limited to the wine-making facil- ities themselves, and not extended to the chateauˆ building. As an informant there explained:

Informant: The former owner wanted to sell it—viticulture was in crisis then and nobody wanted to buy it, but INRA was nearby and knew the place well. It was a bargain, and they weren’t sure what would happen otherwise. It could have become condos or something. INRA didn’t buy the chateauˆ itself for bureaucratic reasons ...theeconomic climate .... Author: The government didn’t want to get caught buying a castle? I.: Well, yes. [Interview, November 26, 2009]

Especially for the more prestigious properties in the AOC, there was a dissonance between the experimental practices of the site and those employed elsewhere in the region, which culminated in some discussion about trying to have Chateauˆ Couhins’s wines lose AOC status. But once status is granted, it is difficult, though not impossible, May 2014 Page 137 for producers to lose it. Complaints of this type tend to be policed initially via the AOC community or syndicate, and are only referred to the INAO officials after failure at the local level to achieve compliance with production standards. Although such things are technically possible, in practice they tend to be rare, with producers given time to bring their wine back up to standard, rather than just summary dismissal from AOCmembership. Thisisinlargepartbecause suchalossispotentiallyeconomically devastating. Wine categorized as AOC Margaux can raise prices to three times those in adjacent AOC Haut-Medoc´ (interview, November 16, 2010), and I was told that prices were 30 percent higher for wines that belong to the more elite Pessac-Leognan appellation versus the broader Graves appellation (interview, November 26, 2009). Once properties can add cru classe´18 status to already prestigious AOCs, their prices tend to trend even higher. Status very clearly both creates and reinforces prestige in regional wines. As the informant referenced above, who is also outreach director for the chateau,ˆ told me:

[We] didn’t manage [the property] as a cru classe,´ more like a scientific space, and the other chateauxˆ were unhappy. ‘You don’t maintain the standards,’ they would say. We had a pretty bad relationship for a while. But in 2005 we changed our approach a little. We put aside a part of the property to showcase research, and we dedicated the rest more formally to traditional winemaking .... Ourimagewiththeothergrands crus is improving. We haven’t changed that much, but we’ve explained what we’re doing more. And we make sure that the cru classedoesn’t´ come from any of the experimental plots. It has helped a lot since we started being more involved in the marketing and promotion of the cru classegroup.Beforetheysaidweweren’tdoingourshare.[Interview,´ November 26, 2009]

As with the case of Chateau d’Arsac, this too was a problem of belonging. In this instance, it was a lack of adherence to the perceived roles and duties of a wine-making property in a prestigious region that had not been met. To align Chateauˆ Couhins with the values of other properties of similar stature, the types of changes involved were not major: attendance at community meetings for the AOC and classification, hosting the occasional special event, and broader participation in activities that showed a desire to conform to shared practices and to be a “locomotive”forthegroup.Severalofthe producers I spoke with noted this importance of having a good locomotive within syndicates. This term was characterized as producers who participated in meetings and activities and took initiative in marketing and promotions, acting as drivers for the images and impressions produced by the wines. At Chateauˆ Couhins, I was told their failure to act in this way had been one of the major sources of contention with their fellow winemakers. All of these various cases and examples point to a need for producers to assimilate some shared idea of social practice to fit in within local and AOC communities, as Page 138 PoLAR:Vol.37,No.1 disputes and their resolution tie closely into inclusion in the social order. Rather than acting as a direct source of power themselves, in all of the cases discussed in this article, legal structures act as another tool for the use of existing social actors rather than a separate means of advancing new rights or desires.

Moving beyond AOC: Some Preliminary Thoughts about GI Expansion Expanding the concept of AOC outward into a broader concept of geographical indications requires a generalization of the underlying values of the AOC system. No longer do the terms and requirements map so clearly onto sociocultural histories, which leaves space for a potential expansion in meanings, definitions, and uses of the terms involved and the products protected. Where does the legacy of their origins in AOC take a broader discussion of GIs? Although there are certainly advantages that derive from such protections within the broader realm of intellectual property, it remains important to consider the ways in which embedded assumptions and structures carry over as well. Some of these assumptions come from the presumed power of terroir. As a practical matter, acceptance of the idea of terroir, or at least of a similar sense of the importance of the qualities imparted to products by their places of origin, operates as one of the prerequisites to assigning value in a separate (non-trademark based) GI regime. As shifts in legal protection move from products such as wine and spirits that are marked heavily by the influence of terroir to other foods, other agricultural products, and ultimately regionally produced crafts, the ways in which place functions as a useful descriptor change. For example, place of production can get split from manner of production, as in the case of the European Protected Food Names (PFN) System. Within the PFN scheme, there are two separate designations, Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), which differ depending on the number and types of connections between place of production and the source of the raw materials (“Protected Food Names”), PDO status requires that all production steps take place in the defined protected area of production, while PGI only requires one of the major steps to take place there. This difference loosens the importance of the confluence between the factors of the place of production seen in the case of AOCs, and makes the protectable value in products potentially less clear. When craft products are at issue, these kinds of dissociations between components of production and final products are only more attenuated and controversial (Denicola n.d.; Liebl 2004). Such issues become more complex when one considers potential defensive usages of status, or usage for additional reasons, such as cultural revival movements or other attempts at the validation of localized heritage. As this article has attempted to show, the role of consensus is intensely linked to preexisting social structures. Yet at the same time, communal structures are necessar- ily culturally specific and tied to different sociocultural contexts. In these cases, GI regulations may not map as completely onto the institutions and orientations already in place as they do in the French context of their creation. For example, in my work in May 2014 Page 139 the United Kingdom, producer communities are nearly nonexistent and far less robust than they are in the case of France. The role of both terroir and regional specialties are also far less important in that context. As a result, although the policy values of the system are nominally the same, the less precise fit among local goals, contexts, and policy values allows for the introduction of other motivations into the system. In the UK, heritage value, the revitalization of food heritage, and the valorization of artisan production often work as major motivating factors, and can overshadow protectionist motivations which loom far larger in the case of French regulation of GI products. Another shift in the system comes from defensive usages of GI, which are quite important in the United Kingdom, acting to cordon off traditional products from encroachment or appropriation by other people in other places. Such concerns can also be seen as a major underlying factor in many Indian GI cases (Gopalan and Sivakumar 2007); products are often protected as a means of cataloging them as a defense against outsiders, in part due to concerns over former intellectual property disputes which have led to trademark battles over iconic products such as Basmati rice and Neem (Shiva 2001). In my work this has been most telling in respect to the legal protection of Cheddar cheese. Time and again, upon discussing the subject of my research, my English informants would lament their legal inability to protect Cheddar as a regionally demarcated product,19 claiming they had “lost Cheddar” to the globalizing forces that had unmoored it from its localized English origins. IarguethatthereisalevelofculturalembeddednessforAOCinFrancethatmakes acomplexlegalsystemeasiertonaturalizewithinthatculturalcontext.Assimilar systems of legal protection spread, however, that connection will be less strong. As transnational actors look to expand geographical indications outside the realm of foodstuffs, such cracks are bound to continue appearing in the fac¸ade of regulations, if spread continues without consideration of its implications. The law is fundamentally specific. As one informant noted, “[I]t’s a typically French system” (interview, December 22, 2009). In the case of geographical indications, the linkages between communities and the law highlights the difficulties and tensions around the nature of law, as well as the nature of practice in the European artisan food sector. The communities and networks involved unite around issues of both policing and consensus, generating webs of cultural meaning around legal norms. In France, existing community consensus is reinforced by the imprimatur of AOC law, even as such values continue to be negotiated among the members of those communities. The interplay between theory and practice here shows that in the case of AOC regulation at least, boundaries are neither purely legal nor purely sociocultural but, in the end, a little of both. In closing, I argue that the expansion and spread of legal GI protections to other contexts attenuates the types of linkages inherent in their French AOC antecedents, bringing out contestation of relevant terms and meanings. Such negotiations may lead to results unanticipated by policymakers who are not expecting the level of contextual specificity inherent in these types of regimes.20 By thinking of the multi- valent possibilities from these sometimes unforeseen adaptations, policymakers and Page 140 PoLAR:Vol.37,No.1 advocates can work to create legal protections that can better align policy, practice, goals, opportunities, and realities.

Notes IwouldliketoespeciallyacknowledgethesupportandassistanceofmyPhDsu- pervisor, Prof. Michael Rowlands, during my time at University College London. Special thanks also go to those who helped to review earlier versions of this paper, notably Alicia deNicola, Joseph F. Turcotte, Ethan Zadoff, Jennifer Roman, and Ian Gaunt, as well as the reviewers for the 2010 APLA Student Paper Prize.

1. The text of the law can be found in Volume 7762 (July 27, 1927) of the Journal Officiel. The first version of the “Protection Des Appellations D’origine” law, which was originally passed on May 6, 1919, was modified on July 22, 1927. 2. Due to the role of the specific French language terms in the discussions within this article, some terms will be defined without directly translating them into English, particularly where doing so would be the equivalent of creating new terms of art in areas with significant scholarly literature. Where there is an accepted translation of a French term, I have referenced it. In other instances I have defined named terms explicitly within the text of the article, as close to their mention as practicable. Additionally, many of the sources used in this article are only available in the original French, translations of any in text citations are my own. 3. Although the original geographical indication legislation only applied to wines and spirits, in 1990 the mandate was extended to other foodstuffs and agroali- mentary products. Regulation and enforcement today is nearly identical in either case. 4. Burgundy is home to approximately 100 AOCs, but unlike in Bordeaux, there is a much closer mapping between soil types, terroir, and AOC designations. This means that while in Burgundy individual terroirs tend to be granted smaller, more specific AOCs limited to regions with those characteristics, in Bordeaux multiple terroirs coexist within all of the region’s appellations. 5. Assemblage (blending) is one of the hallmarks of the wines of Bordeaux. The style is for winemakers to combine from and create a balance between the two principal varietals of the region (cabernet sauvignon and merlot) and, to a lesser degree, a number of other secondary varietals in their wines. This contrasts with single variety (or monocepage) wines, which are produced almost exclusively from single grape varieties. 6. Gironde Archives (n.d.) contains a series of reports on these cases, including contemporary newspaper reactions and government documents annotating the findings of the various decisions. The June 3,1920 article, published in the Feuille Viticole, “L’appellation Sauternes devant la cour de Bordeaux” provides an interesting contemporary analysis of the relevant court decisions (Gironde Archives 1920). May 2014 Page 141

7. In the interests of anthropological ethics, I have not revealed the identities of my informants or their roles specifically in this piece. Due to the small size of many of the organizations discussed, many of them many would be identifiable based upon fuller description. Consequently I have sought to identify them more generally within the text whenever possible. 8. The current version of the statute can be found at http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/ affichTexte.do?cidTexte JORFTEXT000000508748&categorieLien cidcite, accessed February 27,= 2014. Earlier versions of the legislation and= findings from the commission to analyze the effects of the 1905 fraud law can be found in the Gironde Archives (n.d.). 9. The term controlˆ ee´ (controlled) was added to the description with the creation of the 1919 law. It references the governmental quality control function that came with the codification of the existing social practice. 10. This sort of phenomenon is nearly the fundamental dissonance around GIs. It keys into the idea of the generic, which implies that there is no specific quality to the products imparted by place, but that instead the names serve to signify types or styles of products, which could arguably be made anywhere. In my work in the United Kingdom, similar arguments were often made about Stilton cheese, which holds protected designation of origin (PDO) status under the European Union’s protected food names (PFN) legislation. 11. CIVB, the Conseil interprofessionnelle du vin de Bordeaux (Interprofessional Council of Bordeaux Wine) is arguably one of the most important organizations in Bordeaux. Funded heavily by the French government (to the tune of 30 million Euros, even after recent budget cuts), its mandate is expansive. Gathering of economic data, marketing, education, international interactions, and producer support all fall under its umbrella, and the organization serves to link many of the organizations and communities that operate within the region. 12. Cru, or growth, is a term to designate specific tiers of high prestige wines produced on specific properties. 13. In addition to AOC, there are a number of long-standing classifications in place in Bordeaux, which rank properties among various area subregions. The most famous of these is the 1855 Classification, which was created for the 1855 World’s Fair in Paris, and established the list of the most highly regarded wines of Bordeaux, the grands crus classes´ .Furtherdiscussionofthehistory,context, and mechanics of the 1855 Classification can be found in Dewey Markham Jr.’s book, 1855: A history of the Bordeaux classification. 14. The cru bourgeois classification is one the four wine classifications of Bordeaux, and has existed for centuries. Under British rule, some wealthy “bourgeois” merchants bought up many of the best properties in Bordeaux. Before long these crus de bourgeois became traditional, and the term became a marker of the quality of these terroirs and the wines made there. 15. Negociants are the business people who have acted as go-betweens between chateauxˆ and individual buyers for centuries, and their role remains important today. Their professional reputations derived from their role in setting the value Page 142 PoLAR:Vol.37,No.1

of specific wines as conoisseurs and arbiters of product quality, particularly before the existence of formal AOC protections. 16. The map and an online exhibition about its creation can be found at: http://archives.gironde.fr/exposition/guyenne_cartographiee.asp 17. Pessac Leognan is a high-prestige appellation that operates as a subset of the Graves appellation. It additionally is one of the four major wine classifications within the region (along with the 1855, St. Emilion,´ and cru bourgeois classifications), which serve as a further level of distinction among AOC wines, with relevant crus or grand crus holding even greater prestige value than those of simply the Graves or Pessac Leognan appellation alone. 18. A cru classe´ is a particularly highly regarded Bordeaux cru belonging to one of the formalized classifications Bordeaux wines, most commonly the 1855 Classi- fication, the crus bourgeois, or the more local Graves or St Emilion´ classification. 19. I have written elsewhere about the difficulties around this perceived "loss" of Cheddar and the role of the PFN for Westcountry Farmhouse Cheddar (see Farmer 2013). 20. I discuss these issues in greater detail in my doctoral dissertation (Farmer 2011) via a comparison of the AOC system in Bordeaux and the PFN system in the United Kingdom.

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