by Scott W. Clemens
If you read the wine press you’ll inevitably come across the French word terroir, literally soil. Ask a Frenchman why one wine is better or different than another and he’ll explain it in terms of terroir. About twenty-five years ago there was a great debate between New World and Old World winemakers as to the real importance of soil—afterall, it’s just one of the variables. At the time the French backtracked and explained that in reality the word has wider connotations; it also encompasses microclimate and viticultural traditions. Taken together, they argued, soil, microclimate, and viticultural traditions account for a wine’s quality.
In the ensuing years New World winemakers and winery publicists have embraced the idea that terroir is what makes one wine different from (better than) another. Place, afterall, is one of the major differences between wine and beer. There is no doubt that wine, springing from a finicky agricultural crop, is affected by weather, microclimate and soil.
The problem with the terroir argument is that it leaves winemaking out of the equation and loses sight of current reality. In past centuries there was a semblance of vinicultural tradition; technology changed slowly and there was little interaction between winemakers from one area and another. Over the last 60 years, however, technology and interaction have increased exponentially, and the proof is in the glass. But just as shared knowledge and technology have driven quality higher, they have also unwittingly contributed to a certain homogenization of style. This is nowhere more apparent than in Chardonnay.
A few examples are called for here. When I first started reading about wine in the early 1970’s the wine literature used the adjectives steely, flinty, minerally and sometimes austere to describe classic Chablis (Chardonnay from the Chablis district of France), as opposed to the fatter, softer, more opulent Chardonnays from the Côte d’Or. But it was a “classic” tradition only about 25 years old, born of the transition from barrel fermentation to stainless steel, temperature controlled fermentation. Then around 1980 winemakers in Chablis started going back to traditional barrel fermentation, and mimicking other winemaking techniques of their Burgundian cousins. And suddenly Chablis no longer tasted like the Chablis we had grown to know. The descriptors were no longer valid.
The same can be said of California Chardonnay in every five year increment since 1970. At first most were simply cool fermented in stainless steel. Then along came barrel aging, barrel fermentation (along with the attendant choice of forest; domestic, French or Slavonian oak; new or used barrels; the amount of toasting and choice of cooper). Add to that: malolactic fermentation, sur lie aging, and the various clonal selections, rootstocks, trellising techniques, and yeast strains, as well as the age of the vineyards, irrigation, and a far greater understanding of how viticultural practices affect the final product, and you can understand why the concept of terroir as the arbiter of style is completely outmoded.
The point was driven home once again in a late 1990s tasting of Meursault, at Beltramo’s wine shop in Menlo Park, California. Through the 1960s, 70s and ‘80s, Meursault [a Chardonnay from the town of Meursault in Burgundy] was almost exclusively fermented in Limousin oak, so “classic” Meursault was known for its fat, buttery, vanilla flavors with a toasty background. The character was due to Limousin’s phenolic characteristics and wide grain. But the wines of this tasting were much sleeker, still giving the impression of richness but not as oaky, and virtually indistinguishable from many of the top California Chardonnays.
In my subsequent investigations I found that many of the Meursault producers had switched to Nevers and Tronçais oak, tighter grained and slower to impart vanillin and oxidation. Then a light went on in my head—I remembered Alain Fouquet, of Seguin Moreau cooperage in Napa Valley, saying that Limousin was not really suited to wine; it was better for brandy production. He therefore recommended to all of his clients that they buy barrels coopered from tighter grained oak grown in the center of France (the forests of Nevers, Allier and Tronçais). So it appears that to a large degree barrel manufacturers dictated the change in the Meursault style, and that a regional character which was once considered a product of terroir, was nothing more than a local consensus concerning vinification techniques.
One of the most important innovations in the history of winemaking was the introduction of barrels, which could serve both as fermentation and storage vessels. French oak barrels were used only in France. Other countries constructed their own barrels from locally grown trees. So the flavor profile imparted by French oak, belonged only to the French. And that flavor became part of the terroir. Today, French oak is available (at a price) all around the world. You can find French barrel fermented Chardonnays from California, Chile, Australia and Italy. So the particular flavor imparted by French oak is no longer exclusive to French wine. Wine culture has become so international that the distinctions between one wine region and another are blurring, especially in regards to the diaspora of French grape varieties.
Until the introduction of stainless steel fermentation in the 1940’s, the production of wine had remained unchanged for centuries, and while temperature controlled fermentation has revolutionized wine production (and totally changed the character of many white wines), there have been even more advances in the vineyard. Consider a farmer in Burgundy in the 18th or 19th centuries. Everything he did, from planting to pruning to picking was dictated by traditions handed down from generation to generation. He didn’t know a clone from a cocker spaniel. He’d never heard of American rootstock, or clones, and the vineyard was dry-farmed (i.e. farmed without irrigation). He put his effort into producing the biggest crop possible on that piece of land, yet poor soil and inadequate rainfall made the job difficult. Under those circumstances, some places were notably more suitable to growing grapes for wine production.
That old farmer no longer exists. Today’s farmer is a scientist, and his vineyard is his laboratory. The choice of rootstock, clone, trellising and pruning practices, cover crops, yield and managed stress are employed to give the vintner the best possible fruit with which to make his wine and hit his price point. The public relations department may talk about tradition, but tradition is only useful if it achieves the desired end—to produce the best product possible within economic limitations.
I remember writing in 1982 that Chardonnay was a good medium for oak because the grape had little complexity in and of itself, and its flavor profile included a hint of vanilla, as did the oak. Times have changed. A winemaker can now make a complex Chardonnay by blending the various clones that have been isolated in the vineyard. There are clones that taste of apples and pears, clones with a distinct lemony character, and clones with lush tropical fruit character (yeast selection also affects the fruitiness of the wine). Chardonnays with tropical fruit character were once thought to be solely the product of a cool growing climate like Monterey. But with the right clone, hot climate Chardonnays can now achieve the same degree of tropical fruit flavor.
So back to terroir—do soil and microclimate effect the grapes? Yes, of course. Is one vineyard intrinsically better than another? Yes, again. Is it possible to tell that a wine came from particular vineyard or area? Yes, but with qualifications. One of the more fascinating aspects of wine is that it can reflect a sense of its place of origin. In my experience, the two grapes that best reflect their terroir are Pinot Noir and Riesling. But for wine expert and consumer alike, in an era when viticultural and vinicultural techniques change so rapidly, where information flows freely across borders, and regional traditions are in flux, there are very few wines that emphatically declare their origins. More often, winemaking masks the true terroir. Figuring out where the impact of the land leaves off and technology takes over is largely impossible. It is now possible to make decent, sometimes even spectacular, wine from grapes grown in areas that would have been inhospitable to grapes in the era of tradition and dry-farmed vines. Winegrowers can now outsmart Mother Nature.
I’m not questioning the importance of microclimate and soil, but the next time someone explains that a particular characteristic is due to the terroir, take it with a large grain of salt and consider the other factors. Tradition is dead; innovation thrives, and therein lies the fallacy of the whole concept of terroir.
