A thought struck me on the weekend about the much-spoken topic of terroir. In a nutshell, terroir (or rather its importance) is probably not all that important at all.
Now, I know this is a statement that could get me lynched in many parts of the world (or in the company of many wine-drinking groups), but hear me out. Terroir is a curious French word with an imprecise English translation, but it roughly means the specific combination that the soil and climate at a particular site has on the vine growing there, and hence the wine it produces. My issue, I should clarify, is not that terroir exists – clearly it does – but that all too few winemakers and producers allow it to suitably express itself.
This became clear to me as I looked at a bracket of Burgundies from the 2004 vintage of two different producers. The idea was to identify the individual vineyards from these two producers using the classic descriptors about the villages and vineyards the wines came from. The lesson I learnt was that this was all but impossible, as the influence of the winemaker dominated these wines. And it suddenly occurred to me that this is not a problem specific to these two producers, or even to Burgundy. It happens throughout the wine world.
This could get me lynched in many parts of the world.Wines made by large companies, invariably in large volumes, generally do not speak of their terroir or place of origin. Mostly blends from numerous vineyard sites, or at the very least, massive vineyards that have a multiplicity of terroirs, they can at best hope to achieve an accepted commonality or perceived character consistent with the origin of the wine. However the romantic myth is that wines from places like Burgundy, where small-production, vineyard-specific wines reign supreme, automatically reflect their terroir. So a Clos St. Jacques, for example, should always taste like a Clos St. Jacques.
In this tasting it was possible to see a consistency between the wines, as in which of the two producers made each. The various villages were difficult to perceive, and quite frankly, specific vineyards were just guesswork. The winemaking influence on these wines, such as oak use, fermentation and de-stemming practices, and harvest timings all shone through far more than the underlying terroirs of these wines. And it is not just these wines that this afflicts – there are many producers whose 2004 vintages spoke more of the winemaker than the sites.
And it's not just Burgundy that can suffer. Bordeaux, with so many great vineyards adjoining one another, often shows startling differences that can only be the result of the hand of man, rather than any striking variance in soils, aspect or weather patterns. Chateaux Latour, Pichon Comtesse de Lalande, Haut-Bages-Liberal and Leoville-Las-Cases are in a row, one vineyard touching the next, yet all four taste strikingly different (given they're all Cabernet Sauvignon-based blends). Surely the soils do not change all that much? Of course not – they share similar soils, similar aspects and for all intents and purposes, the same weather. Yet the differences in winemaking ethos and methods, not to mention vine age and vineyard management, express themselves far more than the specific terroirs.
So does this mean that terroir, one of the most sacred differentials of Old World Wine production from the most esteemed producers, does not exist? Is it just a marketing ploy utilised to maximise profit or even hide apparent deficiencies in certain wines? No, terroir certainly does exist, and plays a vital part in shaping the taste of a specific wine. But consumers should not fool themselves, or be misled by the flowery sales pitch of marketing departments, wine writers or even (shock, horror), wine retailers that it is the be all and end all of quality wine production. The sad fact is that terroir is all too often obscured by various winemaking techniques, and in reality, its influence is rarely seen.
