CBEES Advanced Seminar with Paulina Rytkönen.

Envisioning the Soviet food regime – Entrepreneurship, cultural heritage, technology and path-dependency in the Armenian and Georgian wine industries.

Paulina Rytkönen, School of Social Sciences/CBEES, Södertörn University
Paulina.rytkonen@sh.se

Abstract

The history of the wine sector is closely connected to issues of local and global power, culture, religion, geography, trade and resources/capital. Therefore a fruitful approach to study the wine sector during any historical period is to highlight the geopolitical organization of food and agricultural relations, e.g. a food regime. By doing so it is possible to take endogenous and exogenous sources of influence under consideration at the same time as the underlying geopolitical structure and its institutional power base can be included. The food regime approach is rather flexible and can help us understanding interplay between changing societal structures, rules, regulations, market conditions and responses of businesses and industries.

Moreover, although food regimes appear during a limited period in time, their
structures live on and cast long shadows on the future. Thus, studying the wine industry departing from and developing the concept of food regimes can in a meaningful way help us to understand agriculture and/or food industry and its branches within the structure and/or context in which they act.

The history of wine in Armenia and Georgia has been organized under two regimes, preceded by a history that includes the invention of wine (8000- 6000 years BC), the cultural embeddedness of wine consumption and production. The historical period grasps the invention of vitiviniculture, the domestication of vines and development of production and consumption practices. During the historical period production was mainly made for
domestic/home consumption and it has been a key element in peasant agriculture, as well as in the creation of traditions, the national identities both in Armenia and Georgia and the articulation of religious ceremonies that date all the way back to christening of the region in the 4th Century AD.

The peasantry-based system, combined pastoralism in the mountains and
slopes, orchard cultivation, wine making, and cultivation of grains such as wheat has gradually evolved over history. As the region has been continuously occupied, annexed or in other ways been territorially claimed by foreign forces, the landscapes, but not the least the production and consumption of wines has filled an important role maintaining local identities.

During the first half of the 20th Century, Armenia and Georgia were incorporated within the Soviet food regime. For the wine industries in Armenia and Georgia, this meant central planning, collectivization of vineyards and wineries, establishment basic institutional infrastructure (hygiene regulations, production protocols, etc), territorial organization of production (i.e. wine regions) and the creation of an intra-regional sourcing system which helped promoting production and exports Georgian wines, while Armenian wines were officially left aside in favour of brandy and sherry.

Both countries exported their products to the Russian market. At the same time, central (Russian and local) authorities made considerable efforts to eradicate the local wine culture, home-made production of qvevri wines and the traditional social and religious ceremonies connected to the consumption of wine. One important local response from cosnumers was to maintain production and consumption of local wines as an act of citizenship and a kind of protest against authority decisions. Moreover, the Russian food regime sofocated private initiatives and entrepreneurial development within the agro-food system.

Today both countries try to become international players and especially the Georgian wine industry has managed to insert itself into the on-going global food regime, in which conditions are set by a highly competitive global market, increasingly globalized trans-national companies and globally accepted institutions for quality certification, hygiene, production, et cetera.

A key feature of the industry in Armenia and Georgia today is that in contrast to the previous period, heritage, culture, religion are now important elements in the modernization of the industry. Ancient production and elaboration methods are being revitalized, ancient vine varieties are promoted and marketing strategies rest firmly on Armenia’s and Georgia’s role in the invention of vitiviniculture. In addition, efforts have been done during the last decade to promote entrepreneurship within the wine sector and although many challenges still need to be overcome, a preliminary view at research results show that some true entrepreneurial responses might be found as business owners in periods have acted under conditions of true uncertainty.

Thus, vitiviniculture is historically a corner-stone in the past and present of Armenian and Georgian societies. But, while the ancient history of wine has been well studied, the last 100 years have been neglected, with the exception of some recent articles on the market potential for Georgian wines. In addition, studies about the food system during the Soviet Union has to a large extent and rightfully so, focused on food shortages, famines and problems until the fall of the Soviet Union. Therefore, understanding opportunities and challenges in a specific industry, such as the wine industry during the last 100 years, contributes with new knowledge about the past and how it influences the present has the potential to contribute with new knowledge.

Departing from a mixed methods case study and phenomenography analysis of interviews this article answers the following questions: How has the wine industry in Armenia and Georgia developed over time? How did and does the history and previous and ongoing food regimes influence the development of the industry in each country? In which way are entrepreneurial responses driven by, or prevented by past and present food regimes? What can we learn by studying the wine industry concerning the short-term and long-term impact of the Soviet food regime on Armenia and Georgia as societies?