The Relationship Wine: Representations of Pinot Noir in Public and Individual Discourses
Dariusz Galasiński
Jan Andrzejewski
In this paper, we examine public and individual representations of Pinot noir. The aim of our paper is two-fold. On the one hand, focusing predominantly on public, ‘elite’ discourses, we are interested in exploring the narrated identities of Pinot noir. We are interested both in the themes which are used in descriptions of Pinot noir and their linguistic rendering. On the other hand, we examine non-elite, individual accounts of Pinot noir and their relationship with the dominant elite accounts. Methodologically, our research is situated in a constructionist view of discourse. We assume that discourse is in a dialectic relationship with extralinguistic reality, representing it and at the same time constructing it. Specifically, we adopt a version of Critical Discourse Studies, assuming that discourses are situated forms of knowledge which are enacted in sets of communicative practices. Discourse for us is socially constitutive and ideological, and it is a system of options. Its product, text, is multifunctional and intertextual.
The main argument in the paper is that in both contexts Pinot noir was constructed in terms of a relationship between the wine and the wine drinker (and grower in the case of the grape variety). Pinot noir is consistently positioned as raising a response from people in contact with it. Accounts of the variety without references either to growers or drinkers are consistently made only in reference to its biological and agricultural characteristics. However, such relationships are constructed differently in the two discourses. The public discourse constructed the relationship with Pinot noir on a macro-level. Attitudes to Pinot are typically shown as common, perhaps even universal. In the individual stories, on the other hand, Pinot noir is consistently represented as in a relationship with the individual drinker.
Dariusz Galasinski is professor in the Institute of Journalism at the University of Wroclaw. He conducts discourse analytic and ethnographic research into public and individual narratives of wine and writes about wine communication as a journalist. He also researches discursive constructions of suicide and suicidal experience. His latest book, co-authored with Justyna Ziółkowska, is Suicide and the Self (Routledge, 2025)
Jan Andrzejewski is a wine importer and author of the project “Labels for Polish Wineries”, in which, in collaboration with SWPS University (Wroclaw, visual identity systems for 67 wineries from Poland were created. He also provides training in wine-related communication, sales, and service for restaurant teams. He is particularly interested in wine communication strategies and the role of wine in society and the gastronomic scene—also in research contexts as an independent researcher.