Author(s):
George Franklin, Jr. McCleary* - University of Kansas
Christian Cooley - Unified Government of Wyandotte County / Kansas City, Kansas
Abstract:
Maps of wine-production areas abound in both scientific publications (books, reports, and journals) and "wine tourism" literature (from brochures and guidebooks to sheet maps and web sites). While some are excellent (e. g., James Wilson's book, TERROIR, and the map, "Vineyards of Yamhill County"), much of the tourism literature is extremely inefficient for navigation and misleading in the representation of the location and extent of wineries and vineyards. There are few maps that contribute satisfactorily to the integrated series of maps at many scales and levels of detail needed to teach a world-scale course in the geography of wine. The problems range from the simple to the complex. Solutions? Base maps of the principal wine-producing regions of the world have been developed on single pages (letter-size), all on the same projection and at the same scale - these can be overlaid easily, facilitating graphic comparison. For the global view, the Briesemeister Projection provides a better perspective than the rectangular projections usually employed. The technology of Geographical Information Systems can be structured to accommodate non-technical (and non-major) students in the class. A "template" (using ESRI ArcGIS) was developed, focusing on the wines of Italy (using Langhe as a local example), to encourage students in the class to examine more interesting, more complex, research problems.
