Cultural Geography

Wine represents a sense of place, or what the French call terrior.  It is the climate, soil, and environment the grapes grow in.  Using terrior as a premise, we may look at a designated area in the realm of cultural geography.  This concept takes into account the culture of an area—people—architecture—economic environment—restaurants and foodstuffs its inhabitants consume—natural yeasts and smells in the air—and an infinite amount of virtue the area represents.  Most importantly, it looks beyond political boundaries to incorporate new ideas and culture.

Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco

Traveling to California’s Bay Area, this sommelier experienced many microclimates and cultural communities.  Why is the sourdough bread so good in San Francisco?  The natural yeasts from the salty bay air.  The fish tasted like the sea because I could see the sea from where I was eating!  The temperature would drop fifteen degrees because I drove down a 2000 foot mountain.  There are a lot of idealists in Berkeley and Techies in Silicon Valley. These are just a few components within the equation of cultural geography in the Bay Area.

Traditionally Chicago is known for steaks and potatoes.  There are too many steakhouses in Chicago, but there is a good reason for it.  The stockyards opened on Christmas Day in 1865 on Chicago's Southside.  With its central location, train tracks were built and Chicago became their hub for distribution.  Ranchers all over the Midwest and Great Plains herded their cattle to the train depots and sent them to Chicago to be butchered.  Upton Sinclair published The Jungle in 1906 exposing the working conditions of America's meatpacking industry. He describes extensively the sanitary conditions of the Southside Stockyards and it led to many government regulations on sanitation.  So these are some reasons why Chicago loves steak representing its cultural geography.