Terroir 2008 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 The wine country, between landscape and promoting tool. The example of Chinon and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil vineyards (France)

The wine country, between landscape and promoting tool. The example of Chinon and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil vineyards (France)

Abstract

When talking about wine, terroirs are never too far. The National Institute of Apellation d’Origine (INAO) defines it as a system inside of which interact a group of human factors, an agricultural production and a physical environment. This definition leads to see terroirs as entities deeply linked to the wine landscape. The latter is above all cultural, which means it was born not only from a land use outstand by the omnipresence of vineyards, but also mainly by men who make the wine, their knowledge and history. In a worldwide wine producing context, the notion of terroirs, full of culture and history, symbolizes the promotion of a product in an old traditional wine area. For this study, we followed the course of two Appellations d’Origine Conrôlée (AOC) situated in North West Touraine (West Centre of France), the Chinon and Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil wines. We realized a diachronic work starting from the end of the 19th century and the phylloxera crisis which marked a break in the French vineyard history, to nowadays strategies to face the new wines. This long lasting course naturally brought us to be interested in the links between terroirs and landscape. From this study, we concluded that the terroirs becomes the link between a more or less glorious past, which created an important wine culture, and a doubtful economical future. The terroirs notion flies to the wine economy’s assistance and perpetuates symbolic landscapes. On the contrary, the value of theses landscapes in particular thanks to the interventions of different actors such as the Mission Loire or the Parc Naturel Régional (PNR) Loire-Anjou-Touraine, takes part directly or indirectly in the promoting of the wine production and in the highlight of terroirs.

DOI:

Publication date: December 8, 2021

Issue: Terroir 2008

Type : Article

Authors

 Jean Louis YENGUE (1,2), Cécile RIALLAND-JUIN (1,3), Sylvie SERVAIN-COURANT (1,4)

1) UMR CITERES 6173. 33, allée Ferdinand de Lesseps, BP 60449, 37204 Tours Cedex 03
(2) Maître de Conférences. Université de Tours, UFR Droit, Sciences économiques et sociales, Département de Géographie, BP 0607, 37206 Tours Cedex 03
(3) Maître de Conférences. Directrice du Master Professionnel Paysages et territoires ruraux. Université de Tours, UFR Droit, Sciences économiques et sociales, Département de Géographie, BP 0607, 37206 Tours Cedex 03
(4) Maître de conférences. Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Nature et du Paysage, 9 rue de la Chocolaterie, cs 2902, 41029 Blois cedex

Contact the author

Keywords

Landscape, vineyards, terroir

Tags

IVES Conference Series | Terroir 2008

Citation

Related articles…

Effect of plant fining agents in the must flotation process. Functional characterization

Flotation is one of the most used processes for clarifying white grape must after the pressing process. To date, gelatine is the more used fining agent, its action being improved when combined with bentonite and silica sol.

Selective and sensitive quantification of wine biogenic amines using a dispersive solid-phase extraction clean-up/concentration method

Biogenic amines exist in numerous foods, including wine. They can have aliphatic (putrescine, cadaverine, spermine, and spermidine), aromatic (tyramine and phenylethylamine) and heterocyclic structure (histamine and tryptamine)

Enhancement of the terroir

The terroir is today the most important factor of production and development in the wine sector. In a context where the commercial challenge is taking place all over the place, the distinction between traditional and “new” producing countries is not only a geographical, cultural and technical counter position but also, and above all, a legal one. Indeed, the system of standards present in the “old world” (plantation rights, production decrees, yields per hectare, etc.) which may represent, in the short term on the global market, constraints to development and product innovation must become an opportunity. But threats become opportunities, if we work, from the vine to the market, via communication, more on the elements of difference than on those of affinity.

Alternative methods to evaluate the pinking susceptibility of white wines: derivative spectroscopy and ciel*a*b* colour analysis

Pinking describes the appearance of a salmon-red blush in white bottled wines produced exclusively from white grape varieties. It is understood as an undesirable chromatic phenomenon by both wine consumers and the industry. Nowadays, there are no treatments to fully reverse pinking once it occurs. Partial reversion has been shown after exposure of pinked wine to ultraviolet (UV) light.

Application of DEXI PM Vigne sustainability tool to the assessment of alternative vineyard protection strategies

Implementing alternative grapevine systems that incorporate sustainable strategies and innovative farming practices is essential. However, we lack tools for measuring the impact of these new practices on the overall sustainability of vineyards. DEXi PM Vigne (Gary et al., 2015) is a tool developed for ex ante assessment of the sustainability of grapevine cropping systems, from the plot to the farm scale. In the present study, we focused on implementing new strategies of integrated crop protection management with limited pesticide use in vineyards.