Making (a) place: wine, society and environment in California's Sierra Nevada foothills

This paper explores the role of the wine industry, writ large, in place-making via a case study of the wine industry, from ‘grape to glass’, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California, which examines how wine production and consumption has influenced the sociocultural and physical–environmental landscape of the region. Using qualitative field methods and secondary data analysis, the paper investigates the impacts of the ‘emerging’ wine industry of the Sierra Nevada foothills by engaging with industry actors at all levels. We find that, while not new, wine grape production and winemaking have become increasingly prominent economically and culturally as evidenced by (in)visible infrastructure and growing direct and indirect contributions to foothill counties’ economies. Moreover, we argue that, in the Sierra Nevada and beyond, wine growing and winemaking provide a powerful mechanism for identity and material landscape production in the area. The pursuit and construction of the Sierra Nevada foothills as ‘wine country’ becomes a means through which the place ‘makes’ itself and, in turn, makes a place for itself across a variety of economic and cultural contexts.