Drought and terroir

J

Jeff Grossman

Jeff Grossman
I was reading an article about the drought in California. Among other impacts they got the winemaker from AmByth Estate to talk about the impact on wine-making:

Says Hart, "If you irrigate grapevines, the roots systems become lazy and stay near the top of the soil." He continues, "But if you don't irrigate, the root systems go down very, very deep. This allows the wines to gather flavor from many parts of the soil, and gives the grape and the wine more flavor, or terroir."

I'm all on-board with no irrigation but that last sentence is ridiculous. As has been said here many times, there is no proof whatsoever that vine roots uptake soil components and transmit them to the grapes. This from a man who should know better.

One rusty prong, with a peeling cheap veneer.
 
You need to wine distinguish between tasting like the terroir the vine grows in (this wine tastes chalky because the vines grow in calcareous rocks) and having tastes affected by the terroir the vine grows in (the stones the vines grow inenhance cool nights and warm days because of thermal lag, thus making for better grapes). Nothing you quote might not accord with the second kind of claim, which I do not take to be a silly one.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
You need to wine distinguish between tasting like the terroir the vine grows in (this wine tastes chalky because the vines grow in calcareous rocks) and having tastes affected by the terroir the vine grows in (the stones the vines grow enhance cool nights and warm days because of thermal lag, thus making for better grapes). Nothing you quote might not accord with the second kind of claim, which I do not take to be a silly one.
Click to expand...

I agree with Jonathan.
 
The possible effects of the drought were discussed with winegrowers in Oregon. My understanding is that they indicated that a year or two of drought is not a permanent detriment. The problem gets serious after several years of drought that impact the long term health of the vines.

. . . . Pete
 
it has been my experience, over the past 3 harvests, that we've have ridiculously good fruit maturity before there was much sugar accumulation in the grapes. This has been true pretty much across the board, meaning, at least for me, really modest alcohol levels, lots of flavor, firm structure without a lot of weight, and really refreshing wines. What it suggests to me is that when the vines sense that the availability of water has gotten low enough, the imperative to ripen the fruit takes command, and in a drought year (or years) that happens sooner, to the benefit of the wines, and the drinkers.
 
Drought in Oregon... really?

Even at the level of rain that one gets in CA these days, vines are perfectly able to survive and make grapes without watering.
Tom Lubbe at Matassa didn't get much more than 6-8 inches a year for the past 10 years. And his vines are in great shape and the wines amazing imo.
Most of the growers in oriental and central spain don't get more rain than in CA, and except those who want to get the big points they do what they've always done : dealing with their climate and soil.
But for sure, you don't plant pinot or chardonnay on any kind of rootstock in the yard in front of your fancy farm house in these extreme climates.
SPecific cultivar of southern europe grapes like Lledoner Pelut were selected along centuries to face these conditions. Very specific rootstock like R110 or fercal will have to be used according to the soils.
Some parcels will work, some not. Often without real rational explanations. A process that takes generations.
No harvest for the first 4-5 years is also the rule.

US growers often tend to see their climate, soil, environement as something to correct with agronomical technology to match some standards.
Thanks to Bacchus most of the old world growers (including traditional growers from southern america and africa) couldn't afford to do so, and went on working with simple but efficient means coming from very clever traditional crafts.

After almost 10 years of growing no till vines with a permanent cover crop, I can say that vines will make either surface and deep roots. I think they know better than me what they need. The behavior of a vine in an artificial biotope like a vineyard is a behavior dictated by constraint and lack of freedom to act. Growers should never forget this.
 
in CA, the water tables used to be plentiful, even in dry years. Now there's so damn many grapes, and so much competition for the contents of the water table (including the draining of aquifers due to proliferation of wells) that farming without irrigation is not the slam dunk it used to be.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top