What We Talk About When We Talk About Terroir

Who cares whether terroir is a real thing or not? French marketing was probably the real reason the term “terroir” became popular.

But it points to something that we – winemakers & wine lovers – aspire to in some way.  

The problem is that we incorrectly think it’s an external goal. By misunderstanding terroir, we strive to achieve wines that express an external geography.

Real terroir is inside us.

We regularly talk about terroir in California. Yet the vast majority of the grapes we grow here did not evolve or adapt on this continent. Further, a vast majority of vineyards in California are irrigated. How can terroir even apply under such artificial conditions?

And what role does winemaking play in terroir? Does a particular geography lend itself toward pressing the juice off the skins before fermentation to make rosé? Is Georgia a better place for skin-fermented whites? Is Montrachet a better place for oak-aged whites?

Maybe.

But it may not be because of the geography.

We can taste a difference between a Pinot Noir from Santa Rita Hills versus one from Cote de Nuits, so we want to say that each place has a distinctive terroir.

This is what I’d refer to as the Comparative Difference version of terroir.

This leads to judging and grading various soils and bedrocks and aspects and latitudes. We create hierarchies based on this version of terroir.

The other version of terroir is the Geographical Expression.

We want the wine to be a unique expression of the place where it was grown. We want the wine to communicate for our land.

This leads to a desire to limit human manipulation of the wine. The popularity of natural wine and low-intervention wine are part of this ethos. We have an innate sense that changes to the wine that are the result of human intention somehow lessen the reflection of this version of terroir.

The problem with this concept of terroir is first that geography itself doesn’t taste that great, and some geographies are actually not conducive to delicious wine at all.

But secondly, there is always an element of human translation (via winemaking) to this expression of the geography, even if we aren’t adding ingredients. Oak or steel or amphora. Skin or No Skin. Co-ferments and Blending. Or just, simply, the timing of the pick.

Even the most natural zero-zero vigneron acts as interpreter for the land.

So while there does seem to be something to place, if we think a little about it I think we’ll see that none of us really mean that we want to purely and simply reflect the geography of our wine.

In Californian that purist version of terroir would mean drinking wine that tastes of sand, scorched chaparral, and raisins much of the time.  

We have to acknowledge that even the most hands-off approach to this idea that we encapsulate in the term “terroir” still involves some alchemy. We transmute the geography – not merely reflect it – into something tasty.

How does that alchemical process play into terroir? What the heck are we talking about when we talk about terroir?

There are two analogies that come at the idea of terroir from different and helpful angles.

First, raising children. As a parent we become distinctly aware that we have inherited many characteristics from our parents and will likely translate those, for better or worse, to our kids. It’s humbling to think where those characteristics and manners came from. Certainly your parents also inherited them from their parents who inherited them, and on backwards into the deep recesses of history.

Of course those characteristic were mutated along the way via your ancestors’ unique experiences. You too have shaped those characteristics by your own life, which often includes a hearty rejection of being like your parents (which is in itself a kind of mutation of characteristics… really there’s no escaping your inheretance).

And now your kids look and have characteristics of your great-grandparents no matter what you do, but they will also be unique. And as good parents you likely cherish that uniqueness, often by trying to influence them as little as possible by your own hang-ups, weaknesses, fears, and failings.

This kind of respect of the specialness of your child (which results in a modest attempt at low-intervention parenting) is a good analogy for winemaking, and children are great examples of unstoppable uniqueness that paradoxically results from inescapable inheritance.

The second, and perhaps better, analogy for understanding terroir is photography.

There is something inherently disappointing in a posed photograph. Just go look at Instagram. Candid shots capture a spark of true life that can’t be replicated by a selfie.

Anyone can take a photograph, but it takes hard work and experience to capture the right moment – when the light and composition are just so – so that we can see the beauty of a scene… the story of that moment.

A good photographer can find the angle, lighting, detail, and perspective to alchemize almost any scene into something extraordinary. And they can do all this without touching anything in the scene.

Alan Watts made the point that we are actually part of any rainbow that we see because the rainbow exists only as an angle of perspective – our perspective – on the refraction of sunlight through rain. Our unique positioning on earth allows a rainbow to come into being, and if we change our position the rainbow will cease to exist.

What is it that a good photograph captures? Beauty, yes usually. But what does that mean?

It’s something like the unique story of a perspective on a moment in space and time. If done well, the timing and perspective on that moment evoke a feeling, or many feelings in us… at times pain, yearning, sadness, memory, fear, love, awe, humor, joy, or all of these and more.

In the photograph of a completely untouched scene, we still see the invisible hand of the photographer behind it.

This is what I think we aspire to when we talk about terroir. It’s not just aspects of flavor that allow us to differentiate wines made here versus there. It’s not just a reflection of a special geography.

Terroir is the attempt to capture in a bottle the unique story of inescapable change – the beauty – of a place and time… and our own lives.

As parents and photographers we understand that our subject is inherently beautiful. With that understanding we begin to realize that to translate that beauty to the world we don’t have to change the subject, we have to change ourselves.

The wine that most reflects terroir – the real terroir – is likely made by changing our perspective, our angle, our timing to capture the beautiful truth of its story as only we have discovered it.

Terroir in wine is an attempt to show that we have the artistry to find beauty without constructing it.