Terroir

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Keith Levenberg:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The first concerns epiphenomena. If I ask you to point to the part of a pocket watch that keeps the time, you couldn't do it. Sure, there is a spring and its behavior is describable by vectors and forces, and there is a dial that is artwork covered in sigils (yet, it is a piece of paper still), and there are hands that are just pointy sticks, and so on. Yet, somehow, the combination of this ticking, spinning thing plus the observer makes time-keeping. Is terroir the watch and the vigneron the observer?

No.

Tut tut. Such certainty in an ambiguous thread is unseemly.

 

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

originally posted by Ken Schramm:
... How can we not have reshaped the impact of the soil on the grapes after the soil has changed from having grapes grown on it (with whatever various soil management/composting/recapture/biodynamic/organic/fertilization/irrigation techniques) for 20 or 50 or 500 years? ...The soil is not immutable. Just changing the nitrogen fixing character of the land from what its native species would have produced to what viticulture produces will alter the mix for as long as the land stays in production.

Good point, but soil composition (IMHO) is only one component of terroir. Other important components include aspect, elevation, fog patterns, microclimates, and so on. One winemaker I know thinks that the biomass surrounding the vineyard is an important element. Some would throw the native microbial population in there (also affected by human activity though).

 

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:

Ken, I don't think anyone is suggesting that terroir, even in the restricted definition, can exist independent of man. Somebody has to tend the vines and pick the grapes, etc., which is why I wrote "a definition of terroir that excluded what people do to grapes after they are picked." Even though pruning for yield management might be considered a kind of intervention.

Not just for yield management. I've tasted the results for two different types of canopy management on Sauvignon Blanc in the exact same terroir. Significantly different flavors.

 

[Ken Schramm]

originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):

Good point, but soil composition (IMHO) is only one component of terroir. Other important components include aspect, elevation, fog patterns, microclimates, and so on. One winemaker I know thinks that the biomass surrounding the vineyard is an important element. Some would throw the native microbial population in there (also affected by human activity though).

Agree. There is much that humans do that can alter some, but not all, of that mix. Use of eucalyptus windbreaks around plantings, or various ground covers between rows, for example. Active topsoil recapture or not. Terracing instead of planting on the natural slope. Use of domestic animals for pest control. With the current administration in place, we're not allowed to comment on our impact on microclimates, but in the time I have spent as a grower, my hardiness zone has changed from 5 to 6A.

 

[MarkS]

originally posted by Ken Schramm:

originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):

... Use of eucalyptus windbreaks around plantings, or various ground covers between rows...

And depending on how 'native' these imported plantings become, they would then change terroir.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:

Ken, I don't think anyone is suggesting that terroir, even in the restricted definition, can exist independent of man. Somebody has to tend the vines and pick the grapes, etc., which is why I wrote "a definition of terroir that excluded what people do to grapes after they are picked." Even though pruning for yield management might be considered a kind of intervention.

Not just for yield management. I've taste the results for two different types of canopy management on Sauvignon Blanc in the exact same terroir. Significantly different flavors.

Some things about winemaking aren't terroir--even in the expanded definition. Terroir, even if one includes cultural and historical elements, is what is there before the winemaker even plants the vineyard. S/he can occlude what is there or try to convey it, or just ignore it. But it will still have been there, even if the wine lacks it. For the purposes of defining or exhorting for natural wine (I'd prefer trying to describe it because I think the philosophical issues behind strict definitions are insurmountable, but that's another argument), discussing what kinds of things a winemaker can "naturally" do or not may be worthwhile, I suppose. But the distinction between definitions of terroir won't change that argument. Even if one describes it only as environmental conditions, those conditions just will be there. And the definition that includes elements of cultural history don't change that. The point of the expanded definition is that the cultural history, as well, just is there, even if the winemaker chooses to ignore it.