[Growwine] terroir

[Terry Rayner]

Ralph, in a way I like your simplified definition. If you remove the winemaker influence from the process and only include that of the viticulturalist, Mother Nature and Father Earth there a re a lot things that can affect the flavour profile of each vintage. One definition of terroir is: "A " terroir " is a group of vineyards (or even vines) from the same region, belonging to a specific appellation, and sharing the same type of soil, weather conditions, grapes and wine making savoir-faire, which contribute to give its specific personality to the wine." and another "Terroir (/t??wa?/ in French) was originally a French term in wine, coffee and tea used to denote the special characteristics that geography bestowed upon them. It can be very loosely translated as "a sense of place" which is embodied in certain qualities, and the sum of the effects that the local environment has had on the manufacture of the product"

The latter might be the purest form in that it specifies the local environment and geography. If you were to take the same vineyard using the same viticultural practices and make wine in 3rd leaf then again in the 7th-8th leaf, when the root structure had developed sufficiently to tap into a source nutrients well below ground, don't you think the wine flavour might change even to the point of quite dramatically. One very notable influence of geography is in the production of Manzanilla sherries. 

While we all recognize that the weather plays an appreciable impact on grape maturity, the impact of vine age and subsurface ground conditions tend to be factors that we as a collective group don't pay as much attention to, yet may explain much of the terroir differences. Every winemaker has there own style, but when a winemaker relocates that doesn't mean the terroir has changed in the new location, nor the old.

Something to think about.

Terry


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ralph Walton2 
  To: growwine at littlefatwino.com 
  Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 12:20 PM
  Subject: [Growwine] terroir


  When I hear the word "terroir" I have an image of a frustrated French winemaker waving his arms and trying to explain something without using words like "merde" and "imbecile" .  



  Sometimes less is more. How about getting back to "Terroir: the sum of the effects of the local environment", and leave it at that?



  Ralph



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