Wine, Heritage Building, and Collective Memory in Georgia’s National Identity

• In Event: Memories of Water, Land, and Belonging in Georgia

Abstract

Georgian national identity is intimately tied to its historical winemaking heritage and practices, reified by the archaeological record and oral histories and bolstered by state discourses. This talk traces the creation and maintenance of these national discourses that center wine as a key component of Georgian identity. It examines how state projects and narratives, generational memories, and contemporary market practices are pulled together to determine how wine is a feature of belonging in Georgian socio-cultural and economic livelihoods and how state and local conceptions of place, memory, and winemaking can come into conflict with one another, redetermining which memories and history take precedence in national discourses.

Author

• Rikki Brown, UC Santa Cruz