More "Facts" on Terroir

Back in KansasCity to babysit the GrandSons, I spent time catching up on reading articles from the WineTerroirist blog:
WineTerroiristBlog
by DavidWhite…one of my daily reads to scout out interesting wine articles around the Web.

From this reading there in KansasCity, I discover that:

1. In Styria/Austria, the steepness of the vnyds (to which I can testify, there are some seriously steep vnyds in this region that should be much better known) uniquely allows the SauvBlanc grape to express the Styrian terroir. Hmmm…too bad the folks in Bdx and the Loire don’t have this advantage so their SauvBlancs can express their unique terroirs.

2. The use of whole-cluster ferments allows the grapes, particularly PinotNoir, to better express the terroir of the site upon which they were grown. Bet there’s a lot of winemakers out there who struggle to express terroir in their wines who didn’t know that fact.

3. That the Norton grape is ideally suited to express the unique terroir of OsageCnty/MO. Since terroir is the be-all/end-all in greatness for any wine, those OsageCnty farmers should quit messing around w/ Vignoles and MissouriRiesling ( MissouriRiesling) ) and get on the Norton bandwagon.

A wee BloodyPulpit:

1. With the grandson in tow, any culinary adventures in KansasCity were pretty much not agonna happen. Did have two very good lunches (whilst Caleb was in school) at TanninWineBar (highly recommended). We did have two very good pizzas at PizzeriaLocale (“PapawHill…the crust is burnt” as he noticed some black spots on the crust…he being a big PapaJohn’s Pizza fan). The PizzeriaLocale in Boulder, of BobbyStuckey and Lachlan, is one of the really great pizza joints in the US (as good as Rosso or Pizzeria DiAvola) and the wine list is incredible. With the efforts of the guy who owns Chipotle, they are expanding/franchising PizzeriaLocale. It doesn’t hold a candle to the original Boulder PizzeriaLocale. The oven is not wood-fired, but gas-fired. The pizzaiola guy said they run the oven at 1,000 deg F. Find that a bit hard to believe. The “feel” is strictly out of Chipotle, the lines to order you pizza and whatever. Rush/rush to get you thru. Only a BobbyStuckey Bianco & Rosso, which were pretty quotidian, if that good. But the ingredients and the crust was good and it sure beats heck out of PapaJohn’s and PizzaHut. The three PizzeriaLocales in KC are worth doing take-out, and then drinking good wine at home on your own.
   Tom

Kansas, huh. There really is no place like home.

I thought this was going to be yet another diatribe on “Sweet Alice”. Glad I was proved wrong. Not sure I agree about whole ferment expressing terroir, but hey, opinions are like…

Tom,

It is a wonderful site to get caught up on a bunch of wine news for sure, and it’s well organized.

The thought about whole clusters continues to be one that comes in and out of fashion. Period. I like and appreciate it’s use personally, and feel that it may help show off what I’m receiving from the vineyards I work with.

But heck, what do I know - I also believe that cluster and Berry sorting, taking it down to optical sorting, does not give you a true picture of that block or that vineyard as clearly as it would have if these techniques were not as heavily employed. . .

Cheers.

Joe’s barbecue is worth a visit to Kansas City all by itself. Carolina (yeah, I know) Pork Sandwich is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Everyone else seemed to be getting the Z-Man.

Yup, James…I’ve had any number of recs on Joe’s BBQ. To tell the truth, even though I’m from KC, I’m not
a really big BBQ fan. So, when I’m back there, I’ll occasionally make a foray to a BBQ joint.
Tom

Well, Tom, I have to agree that facts #2 and 3 seem completely ridiculous. However, the part about Styria makes perfect sense. Those steep slopes can give certain characteristics to the finished wines, making the slopes one of the key elements to the terroir there. Also, I don’t believe there’s another “classic” region for SB (whatever that means, let’s say a region where more than 3 producers grow it and the wines tend to share a certain style) with such steep slopes, so it seems fair to call the situation there unique.

Maybe/maybe not, Doug. I’m sure there are some Styrian SauvBlancs that are grown on fairly flat vnyds, I would guess.
If you would taste those against a set of steep hillside SauvBlancs, would you be able to separate out one from the other?
I haven’t a clue.
Tom

That’s a very reasonable question. I suspect I wouldn’t know which was which but might be able to put them into groupings with some (probably not absolute) consistency. Of course, I don’t know for sure, but slope and aspect are a couple of the few things that can actually impart sense of place. It would be an interesting tasting. I think Burgundy and wines from the Mosel can be discerned in that way to an extent.

Well, I can confirm that there are a lot of great Sauvignon blancs in Styria - and they show their terroir (together with the usual wine-making signature …)
Almost all great SB vineyards are sitauted on (more or less) steep hillsides:

Ried SULZ-Stefan Potzinger (wine: “JOSEPH”):

Ried NUSSBERG-Weingut GROSS:

Ried ZIEREGG-Weingut TEMENT:

But vineyards on flatter terroir usually does not yield the same (high) quality than on steep hills - the sunshine is flatter, the drainage is worse, the soil is deeper … all less good for top-wines.
So I rarely have the opportunity to taste (and compare) wines from flatter vineyards seperately because the wine-makers use them for the classic cuvees …

I’ll take Tom’s point further, but still consistent with his original post: why would steep-slope grown grapes show “Styrian terroir” more than flatter ground grown grapes in Styria? Aren’t they equally expressions of Styrian terroir? You could say the same thing about Napa wine: are the hillside grapes any more true expressions of Napa terroir than ones grown in the valley? Like the comparison of Austria to the Loire Valley, comparing two locations and saying that one is a better expression of its place is just goofy.

why would steep-slope grown grapes show “Styrian terroir” more than flatter ground grown grapes in Styria? Aren’t they equally expressions of Styrian terroir?<<

I tried to explain it above (and it regards to every region, not only to Styria): steep slopes produce (usually) better grapes than flat land - and better (riper grapes with more extract, finer tannins, also riper stems if they get used …) are better able to express the terroir where they were grown …

(at the equator it may be different … )

As Gerhard mentioned, steep slopes promote drainage, which is generally considered a positive in wine grape growing, so any vineyard with good conditions would, presumably, bring out the best in the grapes, no?

I agree, but it didn’t say produced better grapes, it said grapes grown on the steeper slopes better reflected the Styrian terroir. That’s the point where you can tell the term “terroir” has become a mindless buzzword. Grapes grown on an absolutely level plain in Styria equally express the Styrian terroir. The wine made from the steep-slope grapes might be far superior to the one made from the level-plain grapes, but that forces one to discuss wine in an entirely different vocabulary than terroir.

Really thought provoking thread, with lots of good comments, and tip of the hat to Tom for starting it, will help me be critical about my received/assumed wisdom.

To restate the cricky - Gerhard/Frank discussion:

A certain geography may make better wines (steep vs. flat). But that does not mean that a flat terroir - or “lesser” terroir - cannot make wines which speak to its terroir just as clearly as a wine made from a steep or great terroir. It’s just that certain grapes may express better in different terroirs.

There is no Norton grown in Virginia, too.

sorry, there is some Norton grown in Virginia, too

Tannin is very good; Joes is very good; most other KC dining… not so much. If you get a chance visit Jim Coley at Gomer 's in midtown (where he is wine director) for his well-curated selection, and he also has a bubbles bar in Westport.

HI Tom,

real fast::::steep locations like this play with the geo thermals in a very different way than flat lands… the influence of more rolling airflow coupled with the warmth of the micro climate with the protection of the hill and you have the most excellent vineyards in the world… place them on flat lands and your whole amplitude of temperatures alone will make fruit and acidity expressions very different… I concur with the fact that “Styrian terroir” is superior to the majority of flatland or slopes of 50% less slope … you will have better drainage , less humidity, molds, mildews, less fungus, \cleaner airflow promotes the best expressions in fruit because the plant is not stressed over an infection taking energy to fight off the attacks…


Shalom !!!

Salute !!!

Sorry, not much time to discuss self-evident issues …
Water runs downhill … and washes soil downhill into the flat land, therefore the soil in flat land is deeper and (much) less ideal for growing grapes (in addition to other components as drainage etc.).
Less ideal grapes express the terroir worse than fine grapes …

This is the fact in Styria, Burgundy, Wachau, Mosel etc.

Of course, Gerhard is absolutely correct here. Higher quality grapes tend to express terroir more clearly than lesser quality grapes. Think about some of the cheapest Napa Cabernet you can find, Twenty Rows, for instance. It tastes like generic Cabernet. At the higher end, there are lots of Cabs that are easily identifiable in blind tastings as Napa. The same is true for many (most?) other regions. This is especially true in areas like Styria where drainage is so critical and quality has a lot to do with drainage. Grapes that get too much water will produce diluted-tasting wine that’s far less expressive of anything. Someone mentioned hillsides vs. valley floor in Napa, but it’s not a reasonable comparison. It basically doesn’t rain in Napa during the growing season, so drainage is not so related to quality.

Merci…now I understand why we have Chambertin and then Gevrey-Chambertin in Burgundy…