The consumption of space: Land, capital and place in the New Zealand wine industry

Geographers have developed a keen interest in the social production of space - in the way meanings and values are ascribed to places as a result of changing social, cultural and political processes. There is a need to explore this approach further, seeing how social and economic values of places are inter-related and how these values are constructed in often deliberate and concerted ways. There is also a need to explore how such values are consumed: how the values in place are traded, appropriated and redistributed, both through the products of places and in land markets. This paper examines the New Zealand wine industry where certain wine regions have been identified and developed in ways which attempt to emphasise their distinctiveness in terms of wine quality and thus enhance the value of the wine produced. Different strategies have been employed in this process of place construction and this reflects the differential role of capital, striving on the one hand to increase the price and marketability of the products of distinctive places but, on the other, careful not to over-inflate land values and thus restrict further expansion. The paper suggests that the issue of consumption of space, involving a complex relationship amongst land, capital and place, is worthy of further exploration.