How many times have you read a wine review or had a wine salesman tell you, “this wine really expresses its terroir,” and you nod knowingly without knowing what that person is talking about?Can you taste slate in a wine whose grapes were grown on soil covered with slate? Does a wine smell and taste the way it does because of the exact place where the grapes were grown? One of the most controversial concepts in wine is the notion of terroir (pronounced tair WAHR). At a basic level, terroir is the characteristics of the particular place in which the grapes were grown—including soil and subsoil, elevation and aspect, precipitation, air flow, water drainage, sunlight, and temperature—that give a distinctive aroma and flavor to the wine. For some, terroir is more mystical than that, a sense of “somewhereness” that is not measureable by quantifying all of the above characteristics. That is the notion driving the French concept of terroir, which led them to differentiate small plots of land as by their selves producing wines that are noticeably different.For example, vineyards of the Burgundy region, especially the central area known as the Côte D’Or, are divided among a number of villages. The villages of Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet are just three kilometers apart, and each of these villages is surrounded by vineyards. Every wine writer who writes about Burgundy insists that the wines of Meursault are distinctively different from the wines of Puligny-Montrachet. Furthermore, in Meursault, the vineyard of Les Charmes and the vineyard of Les Perrières are adjacent to each other on the same slope. Burgundy writers also insist that wines from these two vineyards are distinctively different from each other.On the other hand, when blind tasting, even experienced French wine tasters cannot tell for certain whether they are tasting a French Burgundy or a California Chardonnay. In the famous “Judgment of Paris,” depicted in the movie Bottle Shock, a California Chateau Montelena Chardonnay beat a Meursault Charmes, and three other California Chardonnays were ranked higher than a Puligny-Montrachet. Had the French judges been able to distinguish between the French and California wines, they would have made sure to rank the French wines highest.Supporters of the concept of terroir are undeterred by results such as these, insisting that there are differences between vineyards even if one cannot reliably pick them out in a blind tasting. As anyone who has done more than a few blind tastings knows, wines taste very different when you know what they are.One of the more prominent proponents of terroir in the United States is the wine writer Matt Kramer. In his book Making Sense of Burgundy, he strongly argues for the reality of terroir, while admitting that one does not come easily to the sense of a wine’s terroir. “Discovering the authentic voice of a particular terroir requires study. The only way is to assemble multiple examples of a wine from a particular plot and taste them side by side. Ideally they should all be from the same vintage.” Furthermore, one must taste first-rate wines, because second-rate wines will not express terroir. Not only that: “Terroir usually is discovered only after repeated attempts over a number of vintages. This is why such insight is largely the province only of Burgundians and a few obsessed outsiders” (like Mr. Kramer).One therefore needs to taste a good number of Meursault Perrières, for example, and then taste the adjacent Meursault Charmes until “the distinction clicks into place in your mind.” Even so, Mr. Kramer admits, one is not likely to be able to spot it unerringly in a blind tasting of a group of Meursaults.Thus, in order to get an idea of a particular terroir, one needs to drink one heck of a lot of expensive wine over a number of years, and not just drink it but drink it in a systematic fashion. Then once one gets the terroir of one vineyard, one moves on to the next and the next and the next. Nice work if you can get it. Getting a sense of a particular terroir is therefore beyond the reach of 99.9 percent of wine drinkers, who do not have the money, time, and inclination to conduct such a study. No doubt a vineyard’s soil and subsoil, elevation and aspect, precipitation, air flow, water drainage, sunlight, and temperature all have an impact on how the grapes turn out, which has an impact on how the wine turns out. An astute winemaker will take all of these factors into account when deciding how to grow her grapes and make her wine. Those characteristics and the winemaker’s choices will all have an impact on how the wines taste, even if we cannot pick out a particular terroir. The fertility of the soil makes a difference. When the soil is fertile, the vine puts much of its resources into growing shoots and leaves, and less resources into the grapes themselves. The vines become leafier, which shades the grapes from much-needed direct sunlight. Poorer soil makes for better wine, as the stressed vine puts more of its resources into the grapes. The topsoil also makes a difference in terms of its heat retention and reflection. The slate in many of the best German vineyards retain the day’s heat better than would clay, for instance, allowing more heat to radiate back to the vines and more completely ripen the grapes. But you cannot taste the slate itself in the wine. The same is true of the gravel on the soil in the Médoc region of Bordeaux and the large stones on the soil of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.The subsoil of the Grand Cru and Premier Cru vineyards of Chablis is a type of limestone known as Kimmeridgian, laid down 160 million years ago when the region was under a shallow sea, and rich in fossilized seashells. People fancifully speculate that this is why Chablis matches so well with seafood, but this is nonsense. More people believe that the character of the limestone finds its way into the finished Chablis, giving it its well-known flinty minerality. But grapevines, and plants in general, do not take up whole complex minerals (as opposed to simple chemical elements such as nitrogen and some simple molecules) through their roots and into their fruits. Scientists have measured the mineral content of wines from different areas and found that there are differences in the trace elements in the wines, but at levels that are far below the taste threshold. A wine is not going to taste of minerals because small amounts of stone have been incorporated into the grape. The taste that we associate with “minerality” comes from elsewhere.A famous study of the vineyards of Bordeaux found that there is little similarity in the chemical composition of the soils on which the best grapes are grown. Instead, what they had in common was “hydric balance.” The subsoil is important in terms of the amount of drainage it allows. As with the fertility of the soil, when vines are stressed for water they will devote more resources to the grapes themselves. If they get more than the minimum amount of water they devote more resources to making shoots and leaves. So it is the drainage ability of the subsoil, not its mineral content, that has an impact on the character of the grapes (and subsequently the wine). The amount of sunshine is a factor in how the grapes turn out. Plants use sunshine for photosynthesis, and sunlight on the grapes themselves stimulate the development of anthocyanins, which give red grapes their color. Therefore, the aspect of a vineyard—whether it is on a south-facing or north-facing slope, for example—determines how much, and at what time of day, the vines get sunlight. The elevation of the vineyard, both in terms of altitude and the angle of the slope, has an effect. The altitude affects the temperature, while the slope affects how much of a vine is exposed to the sun (as well as the soil’s drainage qualities).The amount of water a vine gets, and when, is one of the most crucial aspects of how the grapes turn out. As noted above, vines need only just the minimum amount of water to get the best grapes. More water is good during the beginning of the growing season, during flowering and fruit set, then less water during veraison (when the grapes turn from being hard green little balls to their softened and colored form) in order to stress the vines. More, but not too much more, water is fine between veraison and harvesting. If there is too much water, the grapes themselves fill up with water and the resulting wine tastes dilute. In the French concept of terroir, the amount of natural rainfall is a part of the whole package, and irrigation is prohibited in France. Vine growing would be impossible in many of the New World vineyards without irrigation, and the Australians in particular have brought vine irrigation to a fine art. Thus, in much of the New World, even when the drainage, climate and sunshine of a vineyard are prized, water is scientifically applied rather than being at the whim of nature.Good airflow is important for fighting frost early in the season and fighting rot later in the season.Finally, temperature is a key determinant of how ripe the grapes get, and how quickly. With the record warm temperatures on the East Coast last summer, harvests began in Virginia at record early dates. In warm climates, when the grapes are left on the vine for a while with extra “hang time,” the sugar levels in the grapes will soar, resulting in wine with higher alcohol. In cooler climates, and especially in many of the finest wine regions of Europe where the climate for grape growing is marginal, the grapes need all the warmth they can get, which is why the heat reflecting qualities of the soil, as well as the extra sunlight exposure from being on a south-facing slope, are important.So each of these factors, in their myriad of combinations, has a major impact on the grapes that are turned into wine, and these factors (except for irrigation where not prohibited) are supposedly beyond the control of the winemaker once the vineyard site is selected, leading to the mystery and romance of terroir. But then there is an enormous number of decisions that a vineyard manager and a winemaker make that have a profound, perhaps even greater, impact on how the wine tastes in the end. First of all, the chemical composition of the soil can be changed. Soil acidity and alkalinity affect the nitrogen and potassium uptake, respectively, by the roots. Slightly acid soil inhibits nitrogen availability, which is good in inhibiting vine vigor (which causes too much shade and reduces yield). But vines cannot grow in too acidic soil, and then lime needs to be added to the soil. Too much potassium lowers a grape’s acidity. Vines do better (in terms of producing quality grapes) on relatively poor soil, but if the soil is too poor, fertilizer can be added. A vineyard manager can affect the grapes through his decisions to change the acidity or alkalinity of the soil, to fertilize or not the soil, and to engage in organic or biodynamic vineyard practices. All of these actions are taken even in France, the home of terroir.Next, the vineyard manager can decide which grape varieties to grow on his plots. When a vineyard is switched from the white wine grape Sémillon to the red wine grape Merlot, does one get the same immutable character of terroir in the new wine as in the old wine? Despite its carefully cultivated reputation for tradition, the grape vines planted in Bordeaux have changed radically. As late as 1968, the majority of Bordeaux grapes were white wine grapes, primarily Sémillon. Today, 90 percent of Bordeaux production is red wine. Furthermore, the mix of red wine grapes has changed dramatically over the years.Once his vines are growing, the vineyard manager can decide how to prune and train his vines (although in France this may be restricted by regulation). He can prune his vines to either maximize or minimize yield per vine (as a general rule, lower yields result in better wine, although there are limits). He can remove bunches while they are growing in order to concentrate more of the vine’s resources on the remaining bunches. He can prune in order to maximize the amount of sunlight that directly hits the grapes, or he can remove selected leaves for the same effect.The final question for the vineyard manager (for that season) is when to harvest (which again in France may not be left to his total discretion). The level of ripeness of the grapes has a very substantial effect on the outcome of the wine, both in terms of the amount of sugar available to be turned into alcoholic and in terms of the development of other components that are precursors to the components in the finished wine (the so-called “phenolic ripeness”).The winemaker can specify that the grapes must be harvested and brought to the winery at night or before noon, so the grapes come in relatively cool. The winemaker then decides how to crush or press the grapes, whether to leave the stems in the mix during fermentation, and whether to ferment in wood, stainless steel, or concrete. She decides on the temperature at which the fermentation proceeds. She decides on whether to add sugar and/or acid to the fermenting juice (if permitted by the relevant wine laws). She decides on whether, and how long, to leave the grape juice in contact with the skins (maceration). After fermentation, the winemaker decides whether, and how long, to age the wine in wood or in stainless steel. She decides whether to subject the wine to malolactic fermentation. If the winemaker ages the wine in wood, she decides what kind of wood, and whether the barrels are new or used. She may decide to use oak chips or barrel staves instead of expensive barrels. She decides how long to age the wine in the bottle before releasing.This is just a sample of the myriad of decisions available to the winemaker, all of which have an impact on how the wine tastes and smells. An experienced taster could pick out the taste consequences of some of these decisions, but it would be hard to pick them all out.So where does that leave the great majority of us who may love wine but are not able to undertake Matt Kramer’s rigorous method for discerning true terroir? Even if we cannot tell which characteristics of a wine come from terroir and which come from a winemaker’s decisions, one of the great pleasures of wine comes from paying attention to it. Through the experience of noting the characteristics of the wine as we drink it, we can build up a mental library of what the different grape varieties taste like. We can get a general sense of how wines from France differ from wines from California and differ from wines from Australia. We can get a sense of which wines go better with which foods. We can get a sense of how more expensive wines differ from less expensive wines. So even if we would guess wrong in a blind tasting, we can get a sense of which wines we might enjoy more in a particular situation, which is helpful in deciding which wine to pick out in the store or to grab from one’s modest collection.What we ask of a wine is that it be interesting. This is more than it simply “tastes good.” Coca Cola tastes good. Since wine costs more, often a lot more, than Coke, we are getting our money’s worth from wine if it arouses some intellectual curiosity, an interest in exploring its aromas and tastes as we drink it. We may not be able to distinguish the terroir of a Meursault Perrières from a Meursault Charmes, but we can appreciate the results of the loving care that the grape grower and wine maker put in.And that will do us just fine.
