abstract

I am working on an abstract for a paper in a new journal, The Anthropology of Wine. I haven't written the paper yet (because it requires an awful lot of research) and I don't even know if it'll be accepted, but just writing 200 words about what the paper *might* cover has shown me that writing can really be... a task. The second sentence is ridiculous already. *sigh* So far:
(Oh and PS: "affect" generally means "emotion"; still trying to use the word correctly)


Cactus, Cows, Willie and Wine: Tasting in the Texas Hill Country

This paper examines the construction of knowledge and affect in tasting rooms of wine estates in the Texas Hill Country. Through the writer’s participant observation and ethnographic research with owners, wine makers, tasting room attendants and customers, it considers who visits these ranch side wineries, who works at them and how they interact and think of each other, and of the wine.

As the second fastest-growing wine region in the nation (following Napa), and as the largest AVA out of any single state, the number of Texas Hill Country wineries has grown almost 5 times since 2003 and receive between 3 and 5 million visitors a year.

Visits to vineyards and wineries shape the way people conceive of wine, how the talk about it and how they buy it; the very act of tasting functions as an educational milieu. As Texas continues to grow in the industry, producing first-class wines and drawing millions of visitors, its tasting rooms work to develop an ethos that reflects the Central Texas region: quality without pretension. By considering the structure of discourse and affect, the author explores how she wants to pull her hair out writing this stuff…


aRRRg- back to the drawing board...