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Abstract
At first sight the wine industries of the countries of Europe and the New World use geographic space to create value
in quite different ways. The French appellation system divides space in an intricate, hierarchical manner and
regulates many of the actions of enterprises. In most New World countries, in contrast, rules about the naming of
wines and viticultural and winemaking practices are much looser. Yet, when it comes to commercial practices and
details of labelling, enterprises in the New World use territory in a range of ways to enhance their images and to
manage their risks. Moreover, different forms of production, notably family producers and large corporations, relate to
territory at different scales and in different ways. These practices are investigated by examining the geography of the
commodity chains of winemaking enterprises in New Zealand and France (Burgundy} in relation to their local and
regional environments. The use of different analytical perspectives - the enterprise and the territorial complex - to
understand these agro-commodity chains is explored.
This paper explores three themes from our initial interviews and data collection. The first is a description of the forms
of territoriality of two central protagonists in the two contexts : the large corporation Montana in New Zealand, which
plays a dominant role in the New Zealand"filiere" and the "negociants-eleveurs" in Burgundy. The second is the role
of geographic indications and the professional organisations of the two regions in their territoriality and the third is to
reflect on the convergence between France and New Zealand in the territorial behaviour of the participants in
industries of the two countries.