The Wine Wars The Wine Wars The Mondavi Affair, Globalization and ‘Terroir’ Olivier Torrès with the collaboration of Dorothée Yaouanc Translated from the French by Kirsty Snaith © Olivier Torrès 2006 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-0-230-00210-4 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St Martin’s Press LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-28046-9 ISBN 978-0-230-62491-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230624917 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Torrès, Olivier. [Guerre des vins. English] The wine wars : the Mondavi affair, globalization and “terroir” / by Olivier Torres. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Wine industry––France––Languedoc-Roussillon. 2. Mondavi, Robert, 1913– 3. Robert Mondavi Winery. 4. Globalization––Social aspects––France. 5. Globalization––Political aspects––France. I. Title HD9382.7.L36T6713 2006 338.4'76632009448––dc22 2006043358 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 To my children, Anastasia and Mathis Contents Preface x Acknowledgements xiii Introduction: the McDonaldization of Wine 1 The excesses of globalization 1 Coca-Colonization: a time-worn phenomenon 3 The McDonaldization of society 5 Mondovino: when wine turns into American merchandise 8 1 Robert Mondavi: The Pioneer of the Napa Valley 13 A family of Italian immigrants 14 Oakville 17 California and its rich wine-growing past 18 Napa Valley: a wine cluster 20 The culture of plenty and the Californian Win–Win–Win 23 May 1976: the Paris ‘blind taste’ 25 A historic alliance with the Rothschilds: Opus One 26 Worldwide alliances 30 Floating the Company: the die is cast 32 A marketing strategy 39 Robert Mondavi: an entrepreneur typical of the culture of his country 45 2 Languedoc: The Biggest Vineyard in the World 46 The ebb and flow of Languedoc’s past 46 Union struggles and corporatiste defence in the twentieth century 49 March 1976: the Montrédon shoot-out 54 The metamorphosis of the Midi rouge 56 Aniane: home to the gods 60 vii viii The Wine Wars 3 Aimé Guibert: the ‘Furia Francese’ 65 A family ruined by globalization, reborn through wine production 65 The magic potion of Daumas Gassac 67 Guibert the Tribune 71 4 Mondavi in Aniane: A Promising, but Difficult, Start 74 The creation of Vichon Mediterranean: a dilemma brand 74 The ‘Piémont de Seranne’ report 77 Presenting the project to Aniane’s Municipal Council 78 The project is announced to the population 80 The SAFER uses defence tactics to calm things down 83 The big turnaround in the local wine-producing profession 86 5 Things Hot Up 90 Aimé Guibert as leader of the rebellion: Astérix the Gaul or Mandrake the Magician? 90 Creation of the Arboussas massif defence committee 94 Vivre à Aniane, or how the neo-rurals got involved 97 6 Things get Political 100 Elections on the horizon 100 André Ruiz: chronicle of a defeat foretold 101 Manuel Diaz, the gladiator 102 Discovering the umbrella company 103 Diaz, Mayor of Aniane: woe to the conquered, or ‘losers, weepers’ 107 Mondavi abandons the project 108 7 After Mondavi, Gérard Depardieu Comes to Town 112 A Pyrrhic victory, or how to kill yourself to succeed 112 Enter Gérard Depardieu 114 The wines of Septimanie 117 8 Cultural Differences at the Heart of the Failure 121 First impressions 122 Two contrasting spirits of enterprise: opportunity versus guaranteed income 125 Contents ix Anti-Americanism as part of French culture 128 Professional culture shock: the NWWC versus the OWWC 130 Conclusion: The Corporatisme of Place, the French Exception Culturelle 138 The Don Panoz affair at Lake Salagou 138 ‘Toporatism’, or the French NIMBY 141 Proxemics rules! 145 Globalization and the terroir: the case of scientific research 146 The excesses of alterglobalization 150 Epilogue 153 Notes 154 Index 166 Preface This is a story that has been told by the media all over the world. It is a tale worthy of Clochemerle,1 a novel written between the two world wars that tells the story of a small village in the Beaujolais region that is torn apart because of a public lavatory. In our story, the subject matter is less derisory, dealing with the Californian Robert Mondavi’s decision to set up business in the Languedoc- Roussillon region. Mondavi is a pioneer from the Napa Valley, the Californian region famous for producing wines worthy of the very best French vintages. At the beginning, everyone seemed to win. The Mondavi group would produce an exceptional wine, the local wine cooperative would benefit from Mondavi’s commercial know-how and the region would improve its image in terms of the production of high-quality wines. The project was nevertheless brought to an abrupt halt because of an anti-globalization rebellion composed of ecologists, communists, neo- rurals and wild boar hunters. At the heart of this rebellion there was an atypical wine-grower, Aimé Guibert, himself the producer of one of the best wines in Languedoc, the emblematic Daumas Gassac. His phrase, ‘Mondavi’s wine is nothing better than yoghurt’ was heard all round the world. In 2000 and 2001, in the very heart of Languedoc, the village of Aniane became the ‘Clochemerle for wine’. This wine war is above all a good story. We have had numerous occasions to present it at conferences. Each time, it has raised many questions. Each time, we have organized a vote, asking the public the following question, ‘Would you have accepted Mondavi’s decision to set up business?’ Each time, the results have been very contrasting and opinions widely divergent. But this tale is also a highly stimulating subject for analysis. It is effectively a perfect chance to compare France and the United States. It shows the importance of culture, history, geography and economic and political systems in conditioning our spirit of enterprise and the way in which we do business. The Mondavi affair reveals a part of French culture. A culture that is greatly appreciated abroad x Preface xi but which is also, on occasion, badly misunderstood. In this affair, there is something of the French touch, that strange alchemy which blends the enthusiasm of the ‘Furia Francese’ (‘French Fury’: i.e. the perception of the French psyche being geared more to the offensive than to the defensive) with the sensitivity of the French lover. In every Frenchman there lies a romantic revolutionary. But today, it is no longer the heads of monarchs that some wish to see rolling but those of the market forces. Some people will see this affair as the symbol of a confrontation between ultra-liberalism and anti-globalizationists. Others will ask questions about the many, subtle links that exist between the local and the global, about the sometimes strained, always complex relationship between the near and the far. The Mondavi affair is also the opportunity to highlight a phenomenon which will – according to our theory – develop further in the coming years: corporatisme2 of place. Beyond the merely anecdotal side of the story, this affair opens up perspectives for reflection in fields as varied as international management and entrepreneurship, local development and political science. Above all, the Mondavi affair in Aniane reveals the considerable intermingling of corporate life and life in the terroir.3 This is the price to pay for sustainable development. There should be no opposition, merely conciliation; there should be no demonizing, merely seeking to understand, as understanding is already a form of action. The idea of devoting an entire book to this subject is the natural follow-on from the research that we have been conducting at the ERFI, one of France’s foremost centres for research in the management of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); as well as at the EM Lyon Business School. Having worked for many years on the links between globalization and SMEs, we have brought to light the ‘proximity principle’ which, in our opinion, governs a large proportion of SME management. The Mondavi affair is the perfect illustration of this: the logic of the terroir versus the logic of globalization. We have already published a number of works on this affair, from our first paper written in collaboration with Pascale Blandin for the Académie de l’Entrepreneuriat Congress in Bordeaux in October 2002, to a recent article published in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business in September 2004.