Important and significant volume looking at the remarkable history of Rioja wine for the first time enriching knowledge and addressing debates on inventions of tradition, impacts of crisis for innovation and progress.
Based on unpublished sources, the book traces the economic, social, cultural and political evolution of Rioja's wine over the following decades offering new insight into the social history of wine production, distribution and consumption.
Written by leading academic.
Wide appeal to those interested in wine studies, sociology, social history, tourism, events, hospitality and food studies.
The History of Rioja Wine : Tradition and Invention
Description
Table of Contents
1 An intruder at the royal table; 2 Everything started with a crisis; 3 Taste and status: the invention of the "gourmet" in early bourgeois society; 4 A voice in the wilderness; 5 The Medoc connection: transnational knowledge transfer or industrial espionage?; 6 Conquering the Queen's palate; 7 Thwarted: too modern for the time; 8 Quantity beats quality: the challenge of the phylloxera plague; 9 The comeback: shape and consolidation of a brand; 10 New wine, new conflicts: industrial wineries, small winegrowers and the state; 11 The globalization trap: challenges and opportunities for Rioja wine in the twenty-first century
Author Description
Ludger Mees completed his PhD in History at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, and was Assistant Professor at the same institution before taking up a lectureship at the University of the Basque Country in 1991. Since 2004 he has been full Professor of Contemporary History at the University of the Basque Country, and between 2004 and 2009 he was also Vice-Chancellor. He is author, co-author or editor of 17 books and about 120 articles and book chapters in the fields of nationalism, social movements, historiography and agrarian history. His recent publications include Una Historia Social del Vino: Rioja, Navarra, Cataluna 1860-1940 and The Basque Contention: Ethnicity, Politics, Violence.