Wine farmworkers, provenance stories and ethical value claims

The article extends past research on ethical value claims in two ways. First, research often centres on certifications as mechanisms of ethical claims-making; in contrast, we focus on provenance stories as devices of wine brand differentiation and ethical value creation. Second, while value claims are broadly understood as co-creative outcomes involving producers, intermediaries, and consumers, we focus on manual farmworkers, who are largely absent, as story subjects and storytellers, in agri-food provenance stories and value claims. Focusing on the South African wine industry, we sought to identify alignments between winery brand stories and farmworker heritage stories as a potential route for farmworkers to contribute to and be more securely included and recognized within premium wine value chains. Analysis of a comparative sample of South African, French, Italian and Australian winery websites identified provenance as the dominant frame for ethical value claims, family as a primary anchor for provenance, and South Africa’s distinctive prevalence of representations of farmworkers in winery communications. Two ‘storytelling workshops’ with Cape Wineland farmworkers generated resonant themes – community and familiness; expertise and pride – that aligned with dominant market expectations and credence cues, and could potentially serve as credible, authentic anchors for South African wine value claims.