Jamie Goode: How best to understand terroir?

By , 3 May 2022

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Romanée-Conti in Vosne-Romanée – not all vineyards are created equal.

One of the problems with the term “terroir” is that it means different things to different people. It makes it really difficult to discuss. And scientists are frequently affronted by this word: Mark Matthews, a viticulture professor at University of California Davis even wrote a book titled ‘Terroir and other wine growing myths.’ Geologist Alex Maltman has also been critical. But it turns out that what upsets the scientists most is the idea that you can taste the soil type in the wine. Indeed, there are some French wine folk who give you a glass of Chablis, point to the soils in the region, and suggest that the limestone they contain gives a chalky, mineral taste in the mouth, as if the soil had found its way, via the vines roots, into the grapes and was thus flavouring the wine. But very few wine people I know believe in this notion of terroir.

It also doesn’t help that terroir is a French term. As such, it can be polarizing. Winemakers from other countries who carry with them a degree of insecurity, hate the idea of using a French word, because they imagine it’s another example of the wine world fetishizing the great wines of France, and not taking seriously enough wines from nations with less extensive wine traditions.

Far from being a myth, I think that terroir lies at the heart of fine wine. It’s the unifying theory of interesting wine, and it’s a vital concept for any student of wine to grasp. But how can we best understand it?

In the first instance, terroir is provable. At its simplest, it’s the notion that the vineyard environment – including here soils and climate – influences the way that the grapes grow such that their composition is altered by this environment. Then, if the picking decisions and winemaking allow it, wines made from grapes grown in different places will taste different, even if the same variety or varieties are involved. Terroir is seen in the differences.

It can operate at different scales, from different bits of the same small vineyard, to entire villages, and to entire regions. Regional differences might be clear where those regions share a microclimate, or a soil type. But they might be muddied where the regional designation is a boundary on a map, within which there is a mix of different soil types, or geographical features (for example fertile valley floor versus bony hillsides).

There’s even an argument for suggesting that human practices can be included in the definition of terroir. There is of course no terroir without human intervention, and even with the same block from the same vineyard, if you were to give the grapes to three different winemakers, you’d get three different interpretations of that terroir. The question is not which is the ‘true’ interpretation of place, but whether or not the interpretation is a good, sensible one. Of course, terroir can often speak with a subtle voice, and intrusive winemaking practices (picking too late or too early, extracting lots, using lots of new oak) can obscure the signal. Good winemaking seeks to express place: it’s like tuning a radio.

One of the common mistakes made by commentators is to suggest that if you blend, terroir doesn’t matter. This is the biggest terroir myth going. I’ve heard people say that Champagne isn’t a terroir wine because most of the wines are blends of different villages and even subregions. To be good at blending you have to understand terroir. A decent chef de caves will go through and taste the vins clairs and certainly see their origins. I’m not a chef de caves but even I can appreciate the qualities lent to base wines by their village of origin, and then there would be the extra layer of detail in dialling down further to the specific terroirs in each village which a real expert who spends a lot of time in the region might be able to do. And the great vintage Ports might be blends of different quintas, but terroir is at their heart: it is the place that creates the potential for quality, and great blenders of Port know all about where the component wines come from.

Another myth is the notion that for terroir to be true and meaningful, tasters have to be able to identify the place when they taste the wine. This is not the case. Terroir is evident in differences among wines, and it is still valid even if experts can’t spot where a wine is from. Even if there’s just one person who can spot the place in a wine, that’s enough to make the distinction valid.

Finally, critics of terroir have one big problem to explain. And that’s the parcellation of terroirs in Burgundy, with its hierarchy of climats. How come within a few hundred metres you can have vineyards that make wines that sell for many hundreds of dollars a bottle rubbing shoulders with vineyards whose wines sell for twenty dollars? You could say that buyers are influenced by the names on the labels, and surely this is the case, but only up to a point. With the top wines selling for so much, ambitious people have levelled the same care on village and generic Bourgogne vineyards, and have made some nice wines, but they hit their head on the terroir ceiling: not all vineyard sites are created equal. Ultimately, it’s terroir that is speaking. Yes, the radio isn’t always well tuned and the signal can be weak sometimes, but ultimately its place that matters most. Terroir remains the unifying theory of fine wine.

  • Jamie Goode is a London-based wine writer, lecturer, wine judge and book author. With a PhD in plant biology, he worked as a science editor, before starting wineanorak.com, one of the world’s most popular wine websites.

Comments

5 comment(s)

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    Guy | 7 June 2022

    My take on it is that, as with “variety” and “varietal”, the terms “terroir” and “site-specific” are very similar, but also totally different.

    Andrew Matthews | 11 May 2022

    Hi Jamie
    Your points about terroir and Champagne are interesting. However, the big Champagne houses rely on the NV for sales year in year out. They blend to produce a “house style” that will change very little year on year. They make their NV to suit the customer who wants consistency. Most consumers of NV Champagne don’t care about terroir they just want the same drink all the time. That is the harsh reality about most NV Champagne.

    Paul Wagner | 5 May 2022

    Love this paragraph, Jamie: ‘Another myth is the notion that for terroir to be true and meaningful, tasters have to be able to identify the place when they taste the wine. This is not the case. Terroir is evident in differences among wines, and it is still valid even if experts can’t spot where a wine is from. Even if there’s just one person who can spot the place in a wine, that’s enough to make the distinction valid.”

    For that one person, yes. For the rest of the world? Meh…

    Tom | 4 May 2022

    Hi Jamie,
    When you are next in McLaren Vale, it would be good to show you the Alpha Crucis Winemaker’s Series where we provide six winemakers grapes from the one vineyard.
    As far as we are aware, it is the first time this has been undertaken and repeated over consective vintages.
    I would contend that in my observations from tasting multiple vintages of this project that the ‘radio’ can be tuned several different ways from the same terroir, each wine beguiling, but demonstrating distinctly different winemaking approaches.
    In any discussion on terroir the human factor cannot be downplayed in my opinion.
    All the best,
    Tom

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