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I’ve been meaning to write about Terroir for a long time. It’s one of the most illusive words in the world of wine, because cross-culturally it has no meaning to us native English speakers. Though many experts have tried to give loose definitions, many have come close to the tip of the iceberg but have not managed to make headway. That is because it is really a philosophical word of numerous connotations.
For years a debate has raged about what exactly is implied with the use of this word. In past articles when explaining this particular word as a wine descriptor, I’ve given it the loose definition that is popular with some of the more astute wine writers of our generation: “Sense of Place.” This is thought to be the most accurate definition specifically because of its looseness; thus, it is taught in most major wine curriculum.
If you punch the word terroir into Google translate, you get, “soil” or something of the like. If you capitalize the first letter, notably, you get “Terroir.” This is the distinction between terroir and Terroir. The former only indicates what we would call natural vineyard conditions. But vineyards are not natural. They are inherently man-made intentionally planned ecoscapes. Pay close attention in this article to which of these two differing words are in use, and what they are in reference to.
Sure, once in a while a Vinifera vine crops up somewhere odd on its own, but if you have read my article about Vinifera, Labrusca, Hybrids and More, you’d know that the risk of disease, frost, and mold just about anywhere in the world these days are too great for many Vinifera vines to survive on their own without human protection. The ones that do are often quite sour, unable to ripen properly, and sickly tannic.
So what goes into the use of Terroir? Well, it is a French word, spurred on by the rigorous tradition of the monks that gave the word its provenance. The Côte D’Or as a region has certainly taken terroir to its philosophical conclusion and carefully nurtured the word to maturity via a century of complex, and nuanced cartography.
If you ask a vigneron from this area about his Terroir, he will probably tell you that his daughter was born on a Thursday during the harvest, and he drives his Citroën to work everyday to follows up on this plot after eating snails for lunch; sometimes the sky is dark in the middle of the week which reminds him of a woman he used to know who would become quite pessimistic at times, and all together these factors mean that the wine from that particular plot has greater acidity with a strange flavor of mint and fennel, but nice structure overall.
Realistically, none of this helps us understand what is at the crux of the phrase Terroir, and that’s because the word is loaded with years of history and culture, and as become somewhat reflective of a philosophical outlook on enology and viticulture. At the height of its use, France was at the end of its dominance as a wine-producing powerhouse, as the Californian examples swept the board at the Judgement of Paris.
The French vigneron needed something to cling onto; They needed to remind us consumers of their winemaking tradition, and they did so by recanting their precious Terroir. Because of this diluting of the term in the direct aftermath of a devastating ego blow to an entire nation, many wrote Terroir off as a marketing gambit. Don’t get too excited by the decided dubiousness of the word by some.
Every five or so years, another college or scientific institute’s geology department, or biosciences heads out to the vineyards for a week to tell us about terroir being some unscientific log of crap that has nothing to do with biology or molecular reality and we should all just shut up and drink our Meomi because there’re no stones, or minerals to be found in wine. Well, there’s no blackcurrant, or graphite, or rosemary, or hibiscus, or lily either. These are all comparison words used to fill in the gaps between what we are familiar with, and what we’re not. And while scientific they man not be, they care quite helpful when expressing how the wine makes one feel, and whether he likes it or not.
Like it or not, wine is complex, and yes, Clos de Tart tastes different from the property next door, Clos des Lambrays, in very distinct and immutable ways on a consistent basis. I have a separate article on terroir as it relates to taste. At any rate, I think we can some up this word with a solid grip on the three subjects that are encapsulated within the French word Terroir: tradition, perspective, and terroir.
It is true that every vigneron produces the wines that he likes to enjoy. This quote comes to my from one of the winemakers at Domaine Quivy in Gevrey-Chambertin in reference to how to pick a good wine. Selection by producer seems to be a favorable answer to the majority of Burgundian vignerons. Even in a land so obsessed with the concept of Terroir, it seems terroir will not necessarily suffice. Part of this is due to the way that Burgundy vineyards have been disseminated to their various ownership.
However, the way that they got into the hands of their present owners in the first place is really the first connotation that must be actualized. In the case of Burgundy, these esteemed properties began as simple plots of soils cultivated, and cartographied by the monks of Vougeot. The individual prestige of one vineyard over another, comes from them, their research, maps, and any further law made based on their findings.
Popularity can be another factor - that is, how well a plotted vineyard leaves the shelves, how it makes its audience feel, and what sort of price it can command. Furthermore, in the case of the Rhône valley, where the pitch on the hills where the mistral billows over the vines like a speeding chariot, vigneron use terraced vineyards in order to climb up and down the hills. Vines are ripped from their plots and fixed, others replanted. The best spots here are reserved for Syrah, and Rousanne, the lesser areas host Marsanne.
Virtually all of the grapes that need to be replanted are done so with clones of vines from famous vineyards, or clones of what once had been planted: there’s a culture here that drives an economy of winemakers seeking to express their land, while seemingly mitigating forces of nature, and biodiversity to do so.
This is Tradition. The first vigneron, the monks, per se, seek to understand the terroir, captivated by its irradiating qualities, they remain faithful to it as they establish their perspective, which eventually divulges into tradition. Once you have tradition, you have Terroir. In this way, terroir inspires perspective, perspective becomes tradition, tradition motivates laws that affect plantings, cultivation, style, and ultimately terroir.
We can see this concept in Rioja as well, a region dedicated to the Tempranillo grape, that refined its winemaking processes due to the perspective of one winemaker who had brought the tradition of Bordeaux back home. Rather than aging in leather, Rioja is known for its incredible Reserva wines which spend ages in a foreign technology: the Barrique! From vineyard plotting, care, winemaking, aging, to bottling and beyond, this is one of two human factors that control the outcome of a particular micro-geographical vineyard.
The moment other vignerons step in to take advantage of the techniques brought to the region, there’re plots labeled, terroir analyzed, and boundaries made, then you have the forgings of tradition. After the cartography has been canonized, and the aspect studied, flavor remarked upon and expectations to meet, now you start to see law, which is the hallmark of finished tradition metric for understanding terroir.
Once there is an understanding of Terroir in a region, the Tradition and Law begins to affect the land itself. The Burgundians, with their well-parced and studied land holdings, quarried rocks from around the Côte D’Or in order in order to construct a number of their famous Clos, or walled-in vineyards. The limestone we associate with minerality had to be removed from lesser areas, and transferred to the Clos of more prestigious vineyards. The construction of the Clos themselves to retain heat in the vineyard during the early days of Fall, is an example of how tradition can lead to the modification, preservation, and optimization of terroir.
Let’s look at perspective. If you remember the phrase, every vigneron makes the wines that he wishes to enjoy, you can begin to understand how terroir affects its vigneron. The arduousness of a plot is going to make a difference in the buyer, or vigneron that it will attract. In the case of a vintner who has grown up in the area, he has been formed by a culture of winemaking, and familiarity of the land that is going to lead him to vineyard philosophy that is within the mainstream of the culture of the region.
A company that purchases a plot may not have the same level of intimate familiarity with tradition, but will ultimately have selected a spot that is optimum for overall profit maximization, whether that be on the low end, as in the Central Valley, where jug wines are popular, and producers seek the most arable land for bulk vineyards. Or it could be in the mid-range in the case of mass-market producers found in groceries stores that distribute cross-country and seek out vast quantities of land in established regions.
There are also individuals who purchase land with the vision to assimilate to the local wine culture, but perhaps use fad growing philosophies such as biodynamicism, or organic practices, localization or even rustic winemaking techniques, and often these people breathe new but very old life into these regions and reinvigorate areas throttled by corporate control.
Whatever the case, and whether or not any of these producers chose to adapt themselves to the mainstream wine culture of the area, they all are influenced by the limitations provided them by their own terroir. Often, in the case of the mass-market bulk wines, there is no wine culture, or law besides making as much money as possible. They can plant whatever, wherever, and irrigate if they’d like or ferment with oak chips, or whatever suits their production capabilities.
But there are still limitations - with any terroir, or lack thereof, there will be. One can’t plant grapes on high nitrate soils and expect anything noteworthy. He can’t plant on the west side of a certain vineyard lest you want grape jelly. He must conform rows to this direction to avoid using Bordeaux mixture, so that air can pass freely. Because of the microclimate he must use pesticides some vintages, and is unable to remain biodynamic.
He must replant vines after such-and-such time otherwise yields are far too low. In the case of the corporation, They are forced to set in irrigation , and unable to space vines as close as they’d like, as quality suffers, etc. These are all examples of how the physical geography of a vineyard can effect the perspective of the vigneron.
At the end of the day - when we are really considering all of the elements that make the concept of Terroir so complex, the best thing to understand is the relationship between perspective, tradition, and terroir. Ultimately wine is a man-made product, and whether he cares about quality, or organicism, or whatever, a vigneron’s own impact on the wine is going to make the greatest difference in its Terroir.
That's all,
~K
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