A Case Study of Wine Production and Certification System in Italy: Cultural Anthropological Consideration of Food through Gastro-Politics

Abstract

This article is a cultural anthropological study of Italian wine as an example of modern food that has come to have strong political and economic aspects. Since modern times, political and economic national policies have defined various aspects of food culture. Through an analysis of political policy for food, of collective discourse on food, and of changes in food itself, gastro-political studies have explored this trend and pointed out that food is politically and economically regulated. Wine in Italy is one of the foods that the state regulates using a certification system, and therefore can be regarded as an example of gastro-politics. The following two points can be pointed out from the case of a wine production site in Tuscany in central Italy. First, the certification system not only generates profits for local producers, but it also contributes to wine branding by establishing its global reputation. Secondly, while wine producers sometimes take advantage of the certification system strategically, they also sometimes demonstrate an ambiguous attitude by avoiding the certification system depending on forms of the distribution or the consumption of wine.