Stipend for Södertörn project on wine journalism in Sweden

“The project will examine aromas, flavours and the language of wine – so often bizarre to those on the outside – as well as claims to knowledge. We often think of taste as something subjective, but studies show that we do trust reviewers’ opinions of a wine’s value for money and its quality. I want to understand how we got to this point,” says Peter Josephson, associate professor in the History of Ideas at Södertörn University.

The project focuses on the 1980s, when wine journalism made its breakthrough in the Swedish press. Wine columns began to appear in daily newspapers, television features on wine reached a wide audience, and increasing numbers of Swedes began to orient themselves in this new world of the senses. Flavours and aromas were given flamboyant descriptions – such as “sweaty horse” or “decomposing leaves” – and a new wine language evolved. At the same time, there was a sharp increase in demand, which was sometimes so extreme that Systembolaget (the state-run off-licence) reported queues, empty shelves and customers who wept when the recommended wines had quickly sold out.

Journalism both captured and changed wine’s social status

One of the project’s points of departure is that wine journalism not only reflected social changes, but that it also contributed to them. Wine consumption in Sweden increased significantly after World War Two, at the same times as class identities and ideals were changing. Drinking wine became a way of signalling a particular form of taste, lifestyle and social mobility – something that was both described and reinforced by wine journalists.

Achieving a broad popular appeal was also sought after.

“Reference aromas such as vanilla, coffee and cherry can be perceived as snobbish, but the initial intent was quite the opposite. Journalists and producers wanted to describe wine through language that was recognisable to the average person – everyone knows what coffee smells like!”

Wine columns and interviews

The study will build upon analyses of wine columns and articles in Swedish newspapers from the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as television features, trade journals and material from sources such as Systembolaget. The project also includes interviews with journalists and stakeholders who helped shape the genre.

The plan is to publish the results in international scholarly journals and in Swedish-language contexts, with the ambition of reaching both the research community and the wider public.

“From a historical perspective, perhaps the most peculiar aspect of contemporary gastronomic consumer culture is how we have learned to trust outside experts more than our own taste buds,” says Josephson.