Current State of "Terroir Debate"

Jeff, I'll let look at those old threads, thank you for finding them. I suppose I should have been more specific. Which is hard to do with this word.

I read wine offers like this below.

"Winemaker A, a former physician who trained under Winemaker B, manages his 3.5-hectare estate in Noizay with a rigorous focus on soil health and low-impact viticulture. His technical approach favors a slow, two-year elevage split between neutral demi-muids and stainless steel, allowing the Chenin Blanc to achieve a stable, reductive equilibrium without the need for high sulfur additions. This VdF bottling is sourced from 80-year-old vines rooted in *aubuis* - an iron-rich red clay over tuffeau limestone - which provides the thermal inertia and water retention necessary to produce wines of significant weight and architectural depth. In the solar 2020 vintage, these deep-rooted vines utilized the moisture of the clay to maintain physiological ripeness while preserving their natural nerve, resulting in a bone-dry profile where a broad, phenolic mid-palate is balanced by a high-toned, chalky acidity. The wine concludes with a fine-grained mineral tension and a persistent saline core, a direct outcome of Winemaker A's commitment to dry-farmed precision and extended lees contact."

It just makes me think if a vine is in "iron-rich red clay over tuffeau limestone" is the expectation that these elements will be present as scent or taste? I'm not talking about vine stress or vigor. I'm primarily interested in the direct correlation between soil and flavor. Grown in limestone = taste of limestone. And so on. What is the current science on this? Last time I checked in on this there seemed to be lively scientific debate. I guess I'm not really looking for the "all-in" definition of terroir. More, is it stupid to say X soil can directly result in X scent or flavor.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
AI Overview
According to the Larousse French-English dictionary and Larousse French dictionary, terroir is a masculine noun referring to a region or countryside considered in terms of its agricultural suitability, particularly for producing specific characteristic products like wine. It can also describe a, rural, or local character.

Key Definitions from Larousse:
Agricultural Land: The set of lands cultivated by a village's inhabitants.
Regional Character: A specific area or region defined by its capacity to produce distinct goods (e.g., wine, cheese).
Rustic/Local Flavour: A, traditional, or rural characteristic (e.g., le goût de terroir, which means a "taste of the soil" or authentic local flavor).
Translation: Translated in English as "region" or "country".

In broader, traditional French contexts often referenced in conjunction with Larousse definitions, it encompasses the combination of soil, climate, and human factors that give a product a unique character.

So, the dictionary gives both meanings, no doubt because people are more or less evenly split between them.
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Back in the day, google had an online searchable library of books that it had scanned from great libraries around the world. I did a search of the word "terroir" and the general sense of a region or countryside seemed to be the original meaning, going back at least to the 1500s and even more IIRC. I couldn't find any use of the word as applied to wine until the 18th or even 19th century, also IIRC.
 
originally posted by Marc Hanes:
Jeff, I'll let look at those old threads, thank you for finding them. I suppose I should have been more specific. Which is hard to do with this word.

I read wine offers like this below.

"Winemaker A, a former physician who trained under Winemaker B, manages his 3.5-hectare estate in Noizay with a rigorous focus on soil health and low-impact viticulture. His technical approach favors a slow, two-year elevage split between neutral demi-muids and stainless steel, allowing the Chenin Blanc to achieve a stable, reductive equilibrium without the need for high sulfur additions. This VdF bottling is sourced from 80-year-old vines rooted in *aubuis* - an iron-rich red clay over tuffeau limestone - which provides the thermal inertia and water retention necessary to produce wines of significant weight and architectural depth. In the solar 2020 vintage, these deep-rooted vines utilized the moisture of the clay to maintain physiological ripeness while preserving their natural nerve, resulting in a bone-dry profile where a broad, phenolic mid-palate is balanced by a high-toned, chalky acidity. The wine concludes with a fine-grained mineral tension and a persistent saline core, a direct outcome of Winemaker A's commitment to dry-farmed precision and extended lees contact."

It just makes me think if a vine is in "iron-rich red clay over tuffeau limestone" is the expectation that these elements will be present as scent or taste? I'm not talking about vine stress or vigor. I'm primarily interested in the direct correlation between soil and flavor. Grown in limestone = taste of limestone. And so on. What is the current science on this? Last time I checked in on this there seemed to be lively scientific debate. I guess I'm not really looking for the "all-in" definition of terroir. More, is it stupid to say X soil can directly result in X scent or flavor.
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Based on decades of annual tasting of wines at domaines, especially Burgundy and Germany, but also Northern Rhône and other regions, it's quite remarkable to note not only how one producer's wines differ from site to site, but also how different producers' wines from the same site show a difference in style but have similar underlying qualities. You see this when you taste, say, half a dozen wines from the same vineyard in six cellars in two days. When you find a wine that seems different from that of other producers from the same vineyard, there tends to be an explanation. E.g., one producer's Gevrey-Combottes tasted different from those of other producers and when I asked about it, he explained that his vines are on a sandy part of the vineyard that is different from the other plots in the vineyard.

As for the question about uptake of minerals from the underlying soil, it has been my impression that the debate is long settled: the vines do not take the minerals directly through their roots, but the soil composition affects how the vines grow and develop. But I admit to not having looked into this myself.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
You will note that every definition relating to an agricultural product refers to something like the essence of the region that makes it unique, not a delimited set of features that make it unique. The point isn“��t that there aren“��t non human elements of terroir, but that they aren“��t the only ones. So you can expel them from any particular use of the term, but you can“��t expel them from the meaning of the term. It“��s not like a term that has special usages, in which that usage doesn“��t include others. Gout de terroir, accent de terroir, etc. all use the word in the same way, though they may have specific features in mind. And, again, English has a perfectly good word, terrain, that means just and only what you want for a French word that doesn“��t. It really is the opposite version of the old dubya line: the problem with French is that it has no word for entrepreneur.
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In my way of parsing, there is still considerable overlap between terroir and the two other elements that go into making wine, the grape and the human. But that overlap doesn't eliminate the distinction nor, particularly important to me in this debate, the usefulness of the distinction. To lump everything together loses all capilarity and makes terroir utterly useless. Where do you draw the line? Is the choice of bottle size and color part of terroir since it affects the development of the wine? What about the label, since that is a cultural contribution from the winemaker and tells you something about the esthetics of who made it? It just becomes ridiculous. As I've said before, English has a perfectly good expression, the whole shebang, that means just and only what you want. Or, even, in your definition, the words terroir and wine become interchangeable.

I do see, of course, that half the world uses the definition that I find not only useless but downright stupid. But then, half the US voted for Trump, half of Brazil voted for Bolsonaro. So, in the end, it's downright stupid of me to expect better.
 
The word you want is terrain. You can use terroir to mean that and, since enough people agree with you, they will understand what you mean. But it is like using varietal for variety, a pointless special coinage that has become a word because people don't know any better.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by Rahsaan:
terroir would be the elements that a winemaker could not take with them to another site
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That's probably the best definition for it I've heard and unifies all kinds of different understandings.
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My personal definition is "....the attributes of a wine that the winemaker cannot take with them when they die."

Alice Feiring has an interesting if not rigorous article about the term "terroir" in Issue 39, October 2025 of Noble Rot magazine, London. This issue is subtitled: "Location, Location, Libation! Why Place Matters To Wine." Feiring considers whether the term is falling out of favor in current wine culture.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
it is like using varietal for variety
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Nonsense. You have conflated the use of a word you do not like (attempting, weakly, to substitute a word that is missing too many salient elements) with a grammatical issue (adv. vs noun). Enough.
 
Varietal can be a noun and that’s not the issue. Do you speak of a varietal of any other species? That’s the issue. The common ground is that both coinages are useless. And I don’t have anything against the word terroir, just the misuse of it.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Varietal can be a noun and that“s not the issue. Do you speak of a varietal of any other species? That“s the issue. The common ground is that both coinages are useless. And I don“t have anything against the word terroir, just the misuse of it.
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Both definitions of terroir are current, so neither of us is misusing it.

I find your half's definition useless because it is all-encompassing. But it's not wrong, like the symbol you are using for apostrophies.

My half's definition cannot be substituted by terrain since that word doesn't cover the micro climate, only the geology and topography.
 
It does cover microclimate. According to the OED, it covers all aspects of a tract of land. It covers every implication you need. It just lacks the aura of terroir, which comes from
its attachment to culture. I apologize for what my iPhone is doing to my apostrophes on this site.
 
Claude, thanks for this: "As for the question about uptake of minerals from the underlying soil, it has been my impression that the debate is long settled: the vines do not take the minerals directly through their roots, but the soil composition affects how the vines grow and develop."

My thought was that this topic in particular had not been settled and there was still scientific debate on the uptake question. But relevant hits are very difficult to find online. Particularly a "decisive" article to which one can point.

There's still a lot of people I meet who believe that minerals, chalk, granite, what have you, are uptaken directly through the vine and into the grape. And thus into a finished wine as scent or flavor. It would be nice to have something concrete to direct people to as counterpoint (preferably in layperson's language). It would help me avoid simply stating it as taken fact.

Otherwise, I apologize to all for my clumsy usage of the term "terroir" as that encompasses more than my specific question.
 
The problem isn’t using the term without reference to culture. When that implication isn’t necessary, as it isn’t when you are referring to the affect of minerals in the soil on wine, no one will think the implication is there. The problem is thinking you can use the word in less specific contexts (the affect of terroir on wine) and think you can do so while expelling the cultural implications of the word.
 
When referring to a wine made of a single cepage, it can properly be called a varietal, which is a noun. As Casey Stengel used to say, you could look it up.

Though affect can be a noun, you are right that the word here should be effect. A malapropism is a confusion, but of a different kind.
 
i dip teh toe in less with teh trepidation, but with hopefully an acceptance of teh history. for it is within teh gap between history and fantasy that every dodgy fucker in history has made their move.

which is to say, my fatheaded understanding about terroir aligns mainly with jonathan's. teh point, and it is critical, of course, in teh old world. for a long time, teh land and teh line that exploited it were one.

then it wasn't. but the change is super recent.

i have no desire to describe what happened in the lat 60 odd years. newbz, newbz. landz buying. yachts, helicopters, napa, turnips? and, yeah, sure. 100 in teh hits / pimts with the wine makez hand.

so - 'terroir?' well, shit, i still observe basic standards of dress where everyone just seems lost in their lack of observance. i try. some don't.

which is to say, in this vein, maybe we do or don't see teh human factors passed down.but i'd hope any fool can see that there is a connection with teh land that could matter, and that in least some to a lot of cases, it does.

fb.
 
originally posted by fatboy:
i dip teh toe in less with teh trepidation, but with hopefully an acceptance of teh history. for it is within teh gap between history and fantasy that every dodgy fucker in history has made their move.

which is to say, my fatheaded understanding about terroir aligns mainly with jonathan's. teh point, and it is critical, of course, in teh old world. for a long time, teh land and teh line that exploited it were one.

then it wasn't. but the change is super recent.

i have no desire to describe what happened in the lat 60 odd years. newbz, newbz. landz buying. yachts, helicopters, napa, turnips? and, yeah, sure. 100 in teh hits / pimts with the wine makez hand.

so - 'terroir?' well, shit, i still observe basic standards of dress where everyone just seems lost in their lack of observance. i try. some don't.

which is to say, in this vein, maybe we do or don't see teh human factors passed down.but i'd hope any fool can see that there is a connection with teh land that could matter, and that in least some to a lot of cases, it does.

fb.
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oh teh dear god on teh software. soundz impossible but even i can sounds teh stupider in block text.

fb.
 
Marc, to get back to your original point, I think the answer is basically yes: if you tell me you raised Grape A in Soil B then I can tell you the expected kind of wine you're about to consume. But this is empirical knowledge, not tabular... drink enough wine and you, too, can run the INAO.
 
Jeff, by "expected kind of wine you're about to consume" do you mean textures, acidity level, alcohol content, etc.? Or flavor and scent? For better or worse I am trying to hone in on just the latter. The idea that soil composition directly imparts a predictable flavor to the wine (more or less predictable).

The rest of what is "expected" is discussed in the first article I linked to as well as in the many responses up thread. That's all part of this contentious "terroir" thing. I get that yeasts play a role in scent and aroma, so does vine stress, climate, sun exposure, other non soil externalities.

From firsthand experience we have all developed our own sense of what to "expect" from a given wine (to greater or lesser extent). I know what to "expect" from Pepiere or Baudry or Huet (within reason). But that's adjacent to what I am attempting to hone in on.
 
originally posted by Marc Hanes:
Jeff, by "expected kind of wine you're about to consume" do you mean textures, acidity level, alcohol content, etc.? Or flavor and scent? For better or worse I am trying to hone in on just the latter.
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The latter. Otherwise, the idea of regional identity means nothing. (All those former attributes have obvious inputs and outputs, by which I suppose I mean that we have some workable activities to increase/decrease them. Stir it more! Pick earlier or add a little something! Pick later!)

I know what to "expect" from Pepiere or Baudry or Huet (within reason). But that's adjacent to what I am attempting to hone in on.
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Why adjacent? Do you mean to say that the Hand of Man lies so heavily on the scales that little else matters?
 
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