Taste and Knowledge: The social construction of quality in the organic wine market

This article examines current academic debates about the ‘quality turn’ in the organic wine market and environmental economics. By focusing on how organic wines lead to increased added value when there is no certainty about their qualities, it aims to expand the debate about taste uncertainty associated with variability in the organoleptic properties of a product as key characteristics for market differentiation. The argument points to the need for certainty about the qualities of organic wines in order to establish differences between production practices, optimize purchasing decisions by consumers, and develop reflective processes associated with the variability of taste. This shows that taste uncertainty is intrinsically associated with existing information on the objective quality of the product, from which it is possible to establish a qualitative differentiation among the production processes that can promote a ‘quality turn’ in the wine market. This insight ultimately calls for a more pragmatic vision of taste and quality conventions, as a way of reducing ambiguity in the commercialization of wine production practices, i.e. the marketing of quality.

Quality turn. Taste uncertainty. Marketing of quality. Organic wine. Food safety. Wine market.