Great article William
I continuously ponder over the producer vs. terroir debate you so eloquently wrote on.
To me it seems silly to claim there’s only one single way to express the TRUE terroir of a place. So much of it comes down to a producer’s preferences and decisions in the wine growing and making process that I always ponder how much of the wine’s uniqueness is due to location/terroir vs. producer.
In other word’s when one is drinking Jayer Echezeaux, one isn’t drinking the true expression of Echezeaux, bur rather Jayer’s expression of Echezeaux.
It’s like those panting classes with everyone painting the same subject. At the end of the day when you step back, all of the paintings are of the same subject, but they are expressed differently. Some may show the subject better or worse than others, but even then, there’s bound going to be a handful of paintings that portray the subject equally well, but are expressed in different fashions. It seems to me like no coincidence that we also note things like shape, structure, colour, clarity when we talk about wine as well.
How woefully tedious it would be if every Pinot Noir from Echezeaux or Richebourg tasted the same, all wines completely fungible.
I reckon we drink wine less for the connection to place, and more for the connection to people. Even if we are far removed and distant from those who produce the wine we consume, we are ultimately drawn to the fingerprint of those people who produced the wine, or patina as you’d call it.
I reckon liking a region, vineyard or cru can be seen akin to liking a genre in a book, or film, or whatever other media one may consume. Insofar as that within that genre that are various ways in which that work may manifest. One may have a noted preference for say historical fiction novels, but not all historical fiction novels may move or compel one to read them. It is those from authors with their own set of unique characteristics, quirks and idiosyncrasies (whatever those may be) that compel you to read those books.
I imagine wine being much the same. It’s not so much one’s fondness for say Echezeaux or Montrachet that compels and intrigues, but for rather one’s fondness for Jayer’s or DRC’s Echezeaux, or Ramonet’s or Leflaive’s Montrachet. Each of them imbued with the producer’s unique characteristics, or patina to use William’s word. Even if we are ultimately abstracted and removed from those who produce the wines we consume, I think the uniqueness we often associate with a given terroir is not solely due to the geography of where those grapes were grown, but equally important, if not more so, we are drawn to and compelled by the fingerprints, or patinas, these producers leave behind in their wines