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Michael Veseth is Robert G. Albertson Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Puget Sound. He is the author of many books including `Globaloney: Unraveling the Myths of Globalization´. He writes about global wine markets in his blog `The Wine Economist´. In this article, specially written for WineSur, he talks about how the intersection of global and local interests and forces is shaping the Argentinian wine industry.

By Michael Veseth, The Wine Economist

Glocal is an awkward word but a very useful one.  It describes a powerful process and raises questions that are important to the future of the wine industry in Argentina and around the world.

Glocal is what you get when you marry global with local and it describes a complex process of exchange. Many people see the global and the local only as adversaries, like two football teams.  Global market forces are assumed to be fundamentally opposed to local traditions and values.  Because there is more money behind the global team, most people assume that the local players (and the values they represent) are doomed. Resistance is futile. 

In fact, of course, the process is more complicated than this and influences travel both ways. This is obviously true about football, so why should we be surprised that it also applies to wine?

Glocal exchange is deeply embedded in the wine industry. Although some focus only on the potentially homogenizing influence of international “flying winemaker” consultants and multinational wine corporations that invest locally to produce wines for the international market, in fact the counter-flow of talent and ideas also exists.

It is a tradition among winemaking families, for example, for young people to spend time working abroad through informal exchange arrangements, soaking up experiences, trying out new ideas and making lifelong personal connections. It is an important part of a winemaker’s education. I have met these “flying interns” wherever I have traveled in the world of wine. They are a very healthy part of the glocal wine mix.

A growing number of Argentinean winemakers now work abroad as well as at home, making wines that are informed by both experiences but still hopefully a reflection of the particular local terroir.  They are at once both global and local in differing degrees.

It is possible to try to shelter a local wine industry from global influences, as was the case in Argentina for many years, but protected industries soon run out of ideas and sink almost inevitably to mediocrity. I have seen this time and time again in my wine economics studies. The most valuable local characteristics are not necessarily preserved through isolation, so the choice is not as simple as global or local.  The global market can destroy, as we are all aware, but protected local markets do not necessarily preserve either.  We are left with the reality of glocalism.

Opening the door to the global creates a glocal mix.  International influences are imported, with both positive and negative effects, and local practices, products and values are exported, influencing winemakers and consumers abroad.  Producers in Argentina may feel pressure to make wines to an international standard or to please British wine critics, but they also gain from a larger and more diverse market for their products.  It seems to me that Argentina might especially benefit from this process today as consumers tire of one-dimensional Chardonnay and Shiraz and seek out a more interesting idea of wine.

So how will glocalism turn out for Argentina’s wine industry?  It is too soon to tell, of course, but informed speculation is possible.  First, it will not turn out all one way or the other.  The global-local mix is seldom the product of a single huge blending vat.  And, although Argentina’s wine history is very old, it is a relatively new participant in the current era of global wine, so anything is possible.

Argentina’s wines are bargains in today’s market, but consumers do not buy them just because they are good values but also because of their distinctiveness.  If winemakers can build upon their strengths and create a particular image of Argentina wines (as the New Zealand wine industry has successfully done), then it may be possible to enjoy the best of both worlds, global and local, and glocal will no longer be such an awkward word.

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