Paper short abstract:

In the McLaren Vale wine region, the development of a 'Geology Map' has served to make the subterranean visible. The Map feeds into a range of projects linking flavours to geology, with ramifications for (wine and land) values. The Map is not a neutral artefact but works to produce vineyard space.

Paper long abstract:

According to doctrines of terroir in wine, geology is agentive: rocks do things, and quality wine production is dependent on a complex relational matrix between geology, vine, climate and other physical factors, and cultural/technical interventions. In South Australia's McLaren Vale, the recent development of a regional 'Geology Map' has provided the basis for projects seeking to highlight links between geological 'place' and wine, including structured tasting programs designed to identify and promote specific winegrowing districts within the Vale (with potential for future legislation as 'subregions'). It has also been deployed as a significant tool in the response of local farmers and residents to ongoing threats of land rezoning, subdivision and suburban development stemming from McLaren Vale's location on Adelaide's metropolitan fringe. The Geology Map serves to 'surface' the subterranean, bringing rocks, soils, and geological strata into visible focus and thus setting an agenda that privileges a heterotopic and agentive underground as a source and driver of value. Identifying particular geologies as 'special' and 'unique', the map offers a corrective against the totalizing space of surveyors and land developers, encouraging people to consider the diverse productive potentials of the land beneath their feet. Yet it also provides potential for division as producers may seek monopoly rent values based their own 'favourable' geologies. As the product of a specific interplay of capital interests and scientific technologies, inclusions and omissions, the map is not neutral but an instrument aimed towards a particular construction of space, privileging and highlighting certain elements of landscape.