Letter to the editor: A greenie sees red

Received this email from David Bristow, former editor of Getaway magazine.

Hey CE,

I read you Decanter piece on pino-taag. Good for you.

Just one bugbear though, which is a general one.

I’m a bit of a greenie, you might have noticed. And it seems to me laughable that winemakers, vine growers, wine snobs and the like talk about terroir – this in land that has been ploughed (so most of the good soil microbes die), fertilized, then bombed with herbicides to kill so-called weeds, and later pesticides to kill the rest of us.

What of the substrate, in anything like its natural form, does anyone think comes out in the wine? Fokkollie my bru, zip, squat etc.

Unless you farm organically or biodynamically, all talk of terroir is just so much duck guano.

Lovingly yours,
DB.

What can I say, other than I tend to agree. Any other thoughts?