The Romance of Terroir is Most Important…Not the Truth

terroirromanceA recent article in Spirits Business concerning the trend among Vodka producers to sell their drink based on provenance (where it came from) should remind the wine trade of something important to their own marketing efforts: The importance of the concept of “terroir” is not in the connection between the taste of wine and its terroir, but in the imagery, romance and meaning of place to the consumer.

In the Spirits Business article, Claire Smith, head of spirit creation at Moët Hennessy-owned Belvedere, says:  “Vodka today is globally distilled and variously defined, perceived as neutral and lacking character…Provenance is one way to describe why our vodka tastes the way it does.”

Anyone who can blind taste a vodka and tell me where in the world its raw ingredients were grown is a pretty impressive palate. However, lots of people can taste a vodka they know is made in Russia or France or Poland or the United States and describe exactly what this means to them. And it’s quite likely that this meaning will coincide with what a marketer of Russian, French, Polish or American Vodka has told them it ought to mean.

In the wine industry and among those with a passion for the details of wine, the concept of “terroir” is taken literally. That is, the word is used to describe the process of a piece of dirt and a specific climate lending something important to the character of the wine. Whether this is valuable organizing and descriptive concept for winos is something we shall discuss among ourselves and we’ll even tell a one-sided, pro-terroir to those who are willing to be romanced.

But for the average wine drinker, the person who might splurge on a $50 bottle now and them, who might take his fiance to wine country for the weekend, who might look forward to taking a swing through Burgundy when they visit France, who might download, “The Wines of America” from Amazon, the concept of “terroir” is really no more than a romantic idea.

“What is this wine?”
Why, it’s Napa Valley. where we went last summer and strolled among the vines on the eastern hills then had a remarkable dinner at the French Laundry one evening?

“What is that wine?”
Oh, why that is a Russian River Valley! It’s cooler there with all the fog. We drove through the vines out past the Russian River to the beach where the fog was still thick at noon, then spent the rest of the day wine tasting on the way back. The redwoods were beautiful and the wine, especially the Pinot Noir, was terrific. Russian River is all about Pinot Noir.

Like many of the Vodka makers and vodka cognoscenti, we wine folks are willing to explore the intimate connection between land, air, grape and wine. But like the Vodka marketers who now are rummaging through the idea of “place” to sell their hot water, we wine marketers ought to understand even better than they that the idea of terroir or “place” is something extraordinarily powerful. And most of us would be in dereliction of duty if we did not allow the romance of place to pave the way for consumers to understand our wines.

The power of terroir is not in how it makes wine taste the way it tastes. The power of terroir is derived from the willingness of consumers to be transported to a better place.

 

Tags:


5 Responses

  1. Bob Henry - August 5, 2014

    A news report that might have escaped the attention of wine professionals and wine enthusiasts, and which gives some credence to the concept of “terroir”:

    “Sequencing Study Lifts Veil on Wine’s Microbial Terroir”

    Link: http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/printable_news.lasso?id=10762&table=news

    “Microbes May Add Special Something to Wines”

    Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/science/microbes-may-explain-some-of-the-mysteries-of-terroir-and-wine.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print

    On this subject . . .

    “Anyone who can blind taste a vodka and tell me where in the world its raw ingredients were grown is a pretty impressive palate.”

    . . . American wine and spirits writer Anthony Dias Blue, appearing on an episode of the cable TV series “Mythbusters,” was asked to taste “blind” and rank shots of vodka that had gone through multiple stages of filtration using a [Brita?] water filter.

    Backgrounder: http://www.boozenews.ca/index.php?itemid=231

    Excerpt from “Myths Involving Vodka”:

    “To test whether or not filtering, let alone filtering six times would have any noticeable difference, the show prepared a blind tasting with Anthony Dias Blue, executive director of the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and who they claimed was a ‘vodka expert’. Each of the three tasters (two from the show’s staff) would taste the eight samples: one premium vodka; one unfiltered, low-end shot; and then the variously six filtered samples.

    “The results were not totally unsurprising. First, vodkas generally became better tasting and closer to the premium vodka as they progressed through the various stages of filtration. Second, although much better after six filters, the cheap vodka was much improved but did not taste as great as the ‘top shelf’ vodka. Third, and last, the ‘expert’ taster was absolutely correct in his assessments while the volunteers had much less accurate results. I guess tasting should be left to the professionals.

    Mythbusters then analyzed the vodka samples and found that there was no difference in “chemical composition between the filtered vodka and the unfiltered vodka. . . .”

    (Sorry, I could not find a video of this section of the episode of “Mythbusters” on YouTube.)

  2. Bob Henry - August 5, 2014

    A news report that might have escaped the attention of wine professionals and wine enthusiasts, and which gives some credence to the concept of “terroir”:

    “Sequencing Study Lifts Veil on Wine’s Microbial Terroir”

    Link: http[colon]//news[dot]ucdavis[dot]edu/search/printable_news.lasso?id=10762&table=news

    “Microbes May Add Special Something to Wines”

    Link: http[colon]//www[dot]nytimes[dot]com/2013/11/26/science/microbes-may-explain-some-of-the-mysteries-of-terroir-and-wine.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print

    On this subject . . .

    “Anyone who can blind taste a vodka and tell me where in the world its raw ingredients were grown is a pretty impressive palate.”

    . . . American wine and spirits writer Anthony Dias Blue, appearing on an episode of the cable TV series “Mythbusters,” was asked to taste “blind” and rank shots of vodka that had gone through multiple stages of filtration using a [Brita?] water filter.

    Backgrounder: http[colon]//www[dot]boozenews[dot]ca/index.php?itemid=231

    Excerpt from “Myths Involving Vodka”:

    “To test whether or not filtering, let alone filtering six times would have any noticeable difference, the show prepared a blind tasting with Anthony Dias Blue, executive director of the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and who they claimed was a ‘vodka expert’. Each of the three tasters (two from the show’s staff) would taste the eight samples: one premium vodka; one unfiltered, low-end shot; and then the variously six filtered samples.

    “The results were not totally unsurprising. First, vodkas generally became better tasting and closer to the premium vodka as they progressed through the various stages of filtration. Second, although much better after six filters, the cheap vodka was much improved but did not taste as great as the ‘top shelf’ vodka. Third, and last, the ‘expert’ taster was absolutely correct in his assessments while the volunteers had much less accurate results. I guess tasting should be left to the professionals.

    Mythbusters then analyzed the vodka samples and found that there was no difference in “chemical composition between the filtered vodka and the unfiltered vodka. . . .”

    (Sorry, I could not find a video of this section of the episode of “Mythbusters” on YouTube.)

  3. Randy Agness - August 11, 2014

    See my article in the Times of Wayne County “Does Wine Quality Depend of Winemakers, not Terroir?”

  4. Bob Henry - August 11, 2014

    Randy,

    Why I’d love to read that article — but my Google search came up empty-handed:

    Key words:

    “Times of Wayne County+Does Wine Quality Depend on Winemakers, not Terroir?”

    https[colon]//www[dot]google[dot]com/search?q=Times+of+Wayne+County%2BDoes+Wine+Quality+Depend+on+Winemakers%2C+not+Terroir%3F&oq=Times+of+Wayne+County%2BDoes+Wine+Quality+Depend+on+Winemakers%2C+not+Terroir%3F&aqs=chrome.0.69i59.2649j0j8&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

    Wish to throw a URL our way?

    ~~ Bob

  5. Good Reads Wednesday « Artisan Family of Wines - August 13, 2014

    […] https://fermentationwineblog.com/2014/08/romance-terroir-important-truth/ […]


Leave a Reply