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Tearroir?
- Thread starter Ned Hoey
- Start date
Claude Kolm
Claude Kolm
Sounds like the old Batterieberg label. Many of the vineyards are now at Wieser-Knstler, who is doing an excellent job.originally posted by SFJoe:
Claude, it may be the same winery, but I have in my mind a very old-fashioned German label with cannons pointed at the hillside, celebrating the reshaping of the hill into the (wonderful) vineyards that produced the (wonderful) wine behind the label.
I don't think that's the case. I already said it works across nearby vintages, barring transformative changes to the site. It just not might work (that's "might not," not "doesn't") between two far-apart vintages, especially if there has been any change to the terroir...subsoil, mesoclimate, or whatever. I don't see that as being any more controversial than noting that a given terroir may be difficult to assess across vintages with wildly different weather.I think the problem here is that your definition of terroir then becomes so narrow that it can't work across vintages.
Also, I feel like I need to add that saying a site doesn't necessarily retain a consistent terroir expression is not the same as saying it doesn't consistently express a unique terroir. In other words, the Rangen may always taste different from the Schlossberg, and this may be true whether or not the Rangen of 1900 and the Rangen of 2000 taste like the same terroir. At no point does the Rangen not have an identifiable terroir (again, how couldn't it?), but it doesn't inherently follow that that terroir is identifiable as the Rangen via a consistent set of clues.
Finally, how many people have tasted both the 1900 and the 2000 in their youth? Until descriptors become less subjective (otherwise known as John Lahart's Imaginary World), there's no way to know for sure that the wines taste the same. But this is very far from saying there's no identifiable Rangen terroir, or that it's not identifiable from 1985 through 2005, or that it's not identifiable across producers in a given vintage.
I'll put it another way: it's of no real importance to me whether or not one can place an ESJ wine in a lineup of Rhnes and fool people in a way that a Sine Qua Non can't. Unless what's important to me at that moment is fooling someone in just that fashion.Although theoretically, I can see separating the two, in reality I can't.But it's not interesting to me that they happen to taste enough alike to pair well in blind tastings in the absence of a dialogue, or at least an explanation, of why that is. I care about the latter, not the former.
What I care about is why that is. Is it the terroir? Steve? Microbullage and reverse osmosis? Sentient yeast? Atonal Minnesotan "singers" bleating at the barrels? (I can imagine Steve twitching already.) That's information that's helpful to me in deciding the why of what I like, which helps me in selecting the which of what I like.
Aside from the parlor game described above, the only reason knowing that a Monte Bello and a Latour can sometimes be mistaken for one another -- but lacking any other knowledge about that possibility -- is useful to me is if I wish to substitute one for the other (say, for price-related reasons). I don't, as a rule, buy or drink that way. Others may, and that's fine for them. But with the additional knowledge about why the wines can be conflated, I've actually learned something potentially useful.
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Sounds like the old Batterieberg label. Many of the vineyards are now at Wieser-Knstler, who is doing an excellent job.originally posted by SFJoe:
Claude, it may be the same winery, but I have in my mind a very old-fashioned German label with cannons pointed at the hillside, celebrating the reshaping of the hill into the (wonderful) vineyards that produced the (wonderful) wine behind the label.
Not that many, I thought - W-K are still very small and more than half their land is rented from 2 old guys who live around Enkirch. I think they were planning to buy only .2ha more but don't know if they carried it through. B'berg has unfortunately dropped off a cliff in terms of quality - it's like drinking carbonated Riesling coolers now.
Cannon!
Exactly!
David from Switzerland
David Plattner
originally posted by Ned Hoey:
Tearroir?Bertrand Celce at wineterroirs posts on some rather heavy handed "manipulations".
click me
This activity is something rarely if ever discussed in my experience. I'd like to know
when a wine is not only from young vines but also from a totally reshaped and resurfaced vineyard.
The rule rather than the exception? I remember Albino and I were shocked (sickened almost at the sight) at the highly invasive-looking landscape architecture that took place in Tokaj Hegyalja (among the most prominent historic 1er Crus Disznk and Htszl). But then, the expression of the wines (Disznk more so than Htszl, the latter's subsoil on the famous Tokaj Hegy consisting of loess) is so typical, it's hard to complain in hindsight...
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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J'ai gch vingt ans de mes plus belles annes au billard. Si c'tait refaire, je recommencerais. Roger Conti