Walking, Talking, and Tasting with Winegrowers in Central Ohio and Eastern France: Sensorial Approaches to Making Sense of Climate Change

Abstract Drawing on eighteen months of fieldwork throughout central Ohio, USA, and Alsace, eastern France, I reflect on the importance of relying on more than just my eyes when collecting data. I illustrate examples of how I have felt, heard, smelled, tasted, and now talk about the changes that winegrowers identify in their vineyards, wine cellars, and tasting rooms. Underlying my analysis is a range of winegrowers’ sensibilities when it comes to their attributions of landscape change, acceptance of climate variability, and acknowledgment of anthropogenic climate change. I affirm that it is necessary to look beyond what we observe, as we interpret the collective stories of winegrowers, which are rooted not only in global discourse of climate change but other realities of legislative and economic change. An attunement to the senses, though not in itself a novel concept, remains vital to crafting a holistic picture of which and how livelihoods are changing.