In search of tradition: A comparative analysis of wine production in Calabria (Italy) and British Columbia (Canada)

The relationship between tradition and the taste of terroir products is often set aside in the literature. In different contexts, tradition can serve different purposes, often identity-related, and be analysed as such. In the case of wine and terroir products, tradition also serves commercial purposes and therefore raises issues link to competition and inequality between producing regions. Based on two anthropological field studies on the wine industry, one in Cirò Marina, Calabria, Italy, and the other in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, Canada, this paper proposes a materialist definition of tradition. Tradition can be defined as the opportunities and constraints of the past that explain the organisation of a given production in a particular place. This definition makes it possible to compare discourses on tradition with the historical reality that underlies them, in order to understand the elements that are favoured and those that are abandoned.