Natural Wines as Subversive Art: Exploring expert consumer and producer framings of an unconventional product

We explore a new way to define natural wines, a largely undefined type of wine, through the lens of art. In particular, we borrow from previous theorizations of wine seen as art and incorporate the specific lens of subversive art to frame natural wines as artifacts that oppose the mainstream.
By analyzing data from wine producers and expert consumers, given their influence in a market-driving industry (Humphreys and Carpenter 2018), this paper addresses the lack of an accepted definition of natural wines, a niche segment of the wine world characterized by an unconventional approach to winemaking that seeks to reduce the number of human interventions in the process of wine production while implementing sustainability oriented initiatives (Legeron 2014).
Most of the current definitions of natural wines are contested in the wine world and have not reached a level of widespread acceptance that other conventional winemaking approaches have (Alonso González and Parga-Dans 2020). Additionally, these definitions miss to incorporate an important aspect of natural wines: the subversive element that opposes the status quo.
In order to incorporate this missing subversive element, this paper evidences an emergent finding of how natural wines can be characterized as subversive art. By doing this, the paper expands the limited number of studies on artification i.e., the process of making non-art into art (Shapiro 2019) – of wines (e.g., Joy et al. 2021; Tomasi 2012). In particular, it looks at how art can help define and frame a largely undefined type of product (such as natural wines).
We consider subversive art, for the purposes of this paper, as a countercultural expression of disconformity with the status quo (Auther and Lerner 2012; Kan 2001). Particularly, subversive art can be considered different from other forms of art in that it carries a sense of subversion that can sometimes border in the illegal (Daniels 2016). With no universally accepted definition of “subversion”, subversive art is characterized by actions that seek to undermine insitutionalized systems, with subversive artists attempting to oppose and transgress current social norms and practices (Topuzovski 2017). For instance, street art can be appreciated for its ideological message, such as its indictment of consumerism and excessive materialism in public space (Visconti et al. 2010).
The main research question explored in this paper is: In what ways can sustainable and unconventional wines be characterized as artworks? First, to examine how natural (and overall sustainable) wines are framed by wine producers and wine expert consumers, interview and participant observation data was collected and analyzed as part of a broader study on sustainability in British Columbia’s Okanagan (and Canadian) wine industry. During the fieldwork, interviews, informal conversations, and participant observations (working in a cellar, a vineyard, and a wine shop, as well as participating in multiple wine events and fairs), it was evidenced how an emergent theme for (natural and sustainable) wine producers and expert consumers (wine critics, writers, educators, and experts) involved the opposition to mainstream winemaking and positioning of sustainable and natural winemaking that closely resembled subversive movements in other contexts.
Interviews lasted between one and two hours each, and in some cases a second set of interviews was conducted. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted on-site (usually at a winery, vineyard, or at a convenient and quiet enough venue) or via telephone/video calls. Each interview started with questions regarding the participants’ context and background, and then moved into topics regarding the concept of sustainability, the broader wine world, and the wine industry and sustainability in the Okanagan Valley and Canada. 27 interviews were analyzed: 11 with expert consumers (6 women and 5 men) and 16 with winemakers and/or winery employees/owners (6 women and 10 men). Participant observation methods were also implemented as well as informal conversations with various winemakers and wine experts while attending the international annual Raw Wine Fair twice (2017 in Los Angeles, California and 2018 in Montreal, Quebec).
With artification seen as a process constituted of over ten microprocesses that explain how non-art becomes art (Shapiro 2019; Shapiro and Heinich 2012), this paper is based on the description of how wine can become art, detailed by Joy et al. (2021). The following were key microprocesses that were evidenced through the data collection and analysis and that are of relevance for this particular paper in explaining how natural wines become art, given that Shapiro and Heinich’s (2012) conceptualization of artification specifies that the number and relevance of microprocesses depends on the context being studied: (1) a process of institutional and organizational change is evidenced in the creation and expansion of international and regional natural wine fairs and groups and the ongoing discussion around new normative and regulations about what is a natural wine; (2) the individualization of labour evidenced in certain wellknown natural wines (also evidenced in some conventional wines); (3) the displacement seen in iconic natural wines that are no longer just wines but coveted products, sometimes endorsed and revered by well-known public figures; (4) and the redefinition of time that differentiate natural wines that are artisanal and manually cared for and made by winemakers that oppose the growing standardization seen in some conventional wines.
Finally, three key characteristics emerged from the study that help characterize natural wines and differentiate them as subversive art in comparison to mainstream wines: (1) the opposition to the mainstream: natural wines oppose current institutionalized forms of winemaking, similar to subversive indie art and indie cinema opposing mainstream media productions that are seen as more interested in revenue than in generating value and uniqueness in the art produced; (2) the reclaiming of spaces: similar to graffiti that offers young artists and writers a way to reclaim the spaces they work in and inhabit, natural winemaking allows this for farmers; and (3) rituals of resistance: natural winemakers engage in practices that fall outside accepted industry standards, as seen in graffiti and street art where creators are not satisfied with current forms of art or do not want to engage with its norms.
This paper provides an additional understanding of natural wines, with insights that could be used by practitioners when approaching this niche wine market segment. It also provides further analysis of the artification of wines (Joy et al. 2021) by exploring a specific and largely undefined type of wine and category of art.