Personally, I didn’t think he made much of a case (clearly not one that would hold up to any serious scientific scrutiny) that debunks terroir. His article is filled with personal opinions and incomplete logic. So for me, this article primarily highlighted how little is understood about how flavors in wine are developed.
To test his argument, take it to the extreme and answer the question why La Tache, Close des Ducs, Haut Brion, etc have not been synthesized or even roughly copied elsewhere. If someone could, they would do quite well.
I don’t read him as trying to debunk the concept of terroir; just the notion that geology is a big determinant in flavors, and that minerals in the soil are a factor.
Debunking “the notion that geology is a big determinant in flavors” would be very hard to do. Here would be a few questions that I think would be necessary to be answered before beginning to “debunk” that:
What nutrients are necessary to produce a wine with a certain flavor profile?
Would it matter at what time during the growing season these nutrients are made available to the vine?
Would the availability of varying levels of nutrients (in combination) have an effect on flavor profile or tannin development?
What is the catalogue of compounds that we taste in wine? How is each made?
I could go on…but it’s worth pointing out that none of those questions can currently be answered.
This is the best answer. Look, guys in white lab coats and running around universities have been “proving” things for a long time. But to take a Trekkian approach, “damn it Jim!!” There are some things that just can’t be explained by logic. It is not debatable that some wines just taste different made in certain places, and yes, Pinot tends to taste often a lot better on lomestone or clay mixes than other kinds of dirt. Otherwise I would be growing La Tache in my backyard. Fanciful connections between taste and place? Well maybe. But explain why certain people seem to be more attractive to most of us than others. Taste is an abstract construction, and looking for it in a lab is about as productive and trying to locate where your mind is on a CT scan of your brain.
The article doesn’t debunk the empirical evidence of wines from different plots taste differently, the wine making being equal. However, it merely states, don’t point to the soil type as the reason, as the scientific studies doesn’t support the hypothesis. There are other major factors in play which need to be studied and identified. It’s a known unknown.
It was easy for the farmers to look to the soil for the answer. And recent studies conducted by Francoise Vannier-Petit of burgundy vineyards suggest massive differences of soil type within a vineyard. No one is suggesting the maps be re-written, but one should abandon the “belief” system given the new data and science.
Kevin, I know geology is near and dear to you, understandably. And I actually don’t think Maltman is saying at all that geology is unimportant. Rather, I read him to be saying that, while geology IS an important factor, and provides the matrix on which everything happens, it is a necessary but not sufficient condition. What happens ON the geology is equally (and probably more) important, i.e., the general climate, temperatures, wind/warming/cooling flows, water resources and patterns, the living flora/fauna in and on the soil and vines, etc.
I think he’s actually saying what you’ve always said: that the choice of vineyard site is important, but that how you farm and treat the soil and vines is at least as important, if not more. I hear him supporting the notion that just having a great site isn’t enough, you need to farm the land properly, encourage its health and diversity, because that allows the vines to extract what they need from the soil. It all seems consistent with the idea of organic agriculture, how plots that are farmed with excessive pesticides and herbicides produce sub-par wine, and explains how sites that went from inorganic to organic agriculture blossomed.
In the Uptake (of nutrients) section, he talks about how plants absorb nutrients, including the following:
“There is some passive uptake of elements and the selectivity mechanisms are far from infallible, hence nutrient imbalances can arise, but these are routinely checked for by a conscientious grower and corrected as necessary.”
This makes it sound like it doesn’t matter whether someone has diabetes or not.
The pH of the soil has a huge impact (see the pretty picture below) on how grape vines absorb nutrients…and pH is mostly determined by the soil geology.
Clay particles (the smallest particles of soil, and do a majority of holding on to nutrients) are arranged differently (think snowflakes, sort of) depending on the soil geology. The different types of clay particles hold the various nutrients in differing amounts…affecting the grapes of course.
And, different types of clay particles cause the soil to swell (when wet) and contract (when dry) more or less, which could have an impact on grape vine performance.
Anyways, differing amounts of nutrients is certainly going to affect the grapes/wine and those are, to some degree anyways, affected by soil geology.
The bee in my bonnet about Minerality: he made an oblique reference to the "minerality doesn’t exist because the roots don’t take minerals up and deliver them to the grapes’ argument. Minerality is just a descriptor for some wines. Many red wines have cherry flavors…but no one is arguing this because cherries are taken up from the soil to the grapes. Or earthy flavors in wine, etc. Comments like these by researchers/etc make me think they aren’t paying attention, to the same thing I am anyways.
As wine geeks it’s in our nature to try to understand why wine tastes the way it does as we struggle to describe it. We absolutely believe that some wines are better than others even if we also admit that taste is subjective. We reject the notion that good wine has to cost more while consistently being willing to pay more for a coveted bottle. We embrace the contradictions that make us wine lovers.
Terroir is no exception. Something about the idea that a particular plot of land is special irks us as undemocratic. And yet … the experts spend $$ and effort finding the best plots for their wine growing plans. And we talk about vineyard obsessively. I don’t think any serious wine fanatic can ignore the importance of terroir. I certainly don’t.
I wasn’t that impressed with the conclusions of this article. The science is fine, but far too narrow to prove very much. The reality of vineyard is much more complicated as many here have discussed. And this doesn’t even scratch at all the human intervention in the fields (over decades or centuries!) on the plants as they grow, when they are picked, how they are handled, how the wines are manipulated, etc. These variables are not impossible to understand; they certainly all impact what we taste in the wine.
[thread drift!] Many of you are wine makers. What would you prefer, access to a particular plot of vines/land? Or Aubert de Villaine spending time with you as a mentor for an entire cycle of wine growing/production?
Tosh. Just because producers of goods use a term in their marketing doesn’t mean it has no value or truth. Nate is it really true that you have no wine preferences based on vineyard? Or even wider, appellation? This is hard to imagine.
Kevin Harvey has been kind enough to post here. Of his wines, I generally like Alpine more than Home. Isn’t this terroir?
Again, I think what he is saying is that the soil type and conditions act indirectly to foster growth of flora, which in turn is the greater source of nutrients - including minerals. It would be interesting to try and grow plants in a completely sterilized soil base, just water and soil, and see how they do vs. a thriving soil. I think we know the answer to that
Alan,
I agree with essentially all of your points of course and geology is certainly not the only factor in wine character and quality.
This article (which essentially gets re-written each year or so under various titles, “Terroir debunked”, “The Myth of Terroir” etc ) seems to presume that someone out there believes that geology is the only factor in wine quality and character but I have yet to meet that person…
It would be much more interesting to read “Terroir understood” or “The role of geology in wine character and quality”!!
FWIW, Maltman has written a book entitled Vineyard, Rocks, and Soils: The Winelover’s Guide to Geology. So, pretty sure he thinks geology is important and he has much more to say than can be learned from this one short article.
Perhaps he is writing to a lot of somms, and even vignerons, who emphasize the chalk/clay/schist in their vineyard as the primary reason for it’s character. Or just the average wine drinker (as opposed to us wine geeks) who hasn’t really thought about it much. But I agree that his title is in a way almost as misleading as the “myths” he is addressing.
Rich, you know me, the single most important thing to me is owning the vineyard I work and make all the decisions for. But I have never had it any other way. I did not start out purchasing fruit from another vineyard, and go on to purchase my own. As a control freak, this suits me very well. As I often say, when people ask me how I got into all this, I simply say: "I bought a house I loved, and it came with a vineyard (and view and privacy - all important to me). I was fortunate (because I was clueless) that my small ranch is located in an area known for producing excellent fruit - oh, here we go again: terroir!
That’s exactly what I thought. It’s not about debunking the idea of terroir or even that geology plays a part. I hear over and over again about a wine tasting like chalk because there’s chalk in the soil, though (for example), and that’s just nonsense. Of course differences in geology will give different pH, drainage, and probably different soil microbes, and that all can influence the style and aromas of the finished wine. I don’t see the author arguing against any of that. There is this very common myth that the soil and geology are by far the most important elements of terroir and that they very directly influence how a wine tastes. So much wine marketing is based around that. I hear is from importers, winemakers, and sommeliers all the time. I think the author is pointing out the fallacy in that idea. A lot of posters here are reading more into the article, including things that I don’t see there at all.
Doug, that was my take when I first read it as well. If you go by his introductory paragraphs, he’s responding to your points:
‘Soil, not grapes, is the latest must-know when choosing a wine,’ Bloomberg tells me, for example. So why am I not full of joy? Well, because as a scientist I have to follow the evidence, and this leads me to query this new pre-eminence of vineyard geology.
Of course, a link between wine and the land has long been treasured as something special. It even survived the discovery of photosynthesis – that vines and wine are not made from matter drawn from the ground but almost wholly of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, abstracted from water and the air.
The rocks and soils in which the vines grow are certainly still part of the scientific picture, but this pre-eminent role is something new.
Today there are restaurants with wine lists organised not by grape, wine style or country of origin, but by vineyard geology.
Alice Feiring’s book The Dirty Guide to Wine urges drinkers to choose their wines by ‘looking at the source: the ground in which it grows’. There’s a consortium of growers from such diverse places as St-Chinian, Alsace, Corsica and Valais that claims commonality of its members’ wines simply because their vines are growing on schist – even though schist and the soils derived from it are incredibly varied. The same could be said about the very fashionable idea of (so-called) volcanic wines.
Yet in none of this are we told what the geology actually does; how a particular rock brings something special to the wine in our glasses.
I only posted the article because Carole Meredith pointed it out. Maybe she’ll chime in with an opinion, but I bow to a famous botanist who spent her career studying vines (and works a great vineyard) not to send us down the wrong path
I never think of terroir is being solely or largely soil. A vineyard with chalky/schisty/granity/loamy/whatevery soil does not have the same terroir as a vineyard 500 miles away with chalky/schisty/granity/loamy/whatevery soil.
I agree, Alan. Also agree it is an article well worth reading and thinking about. The title is “Busting Terroir Myths,” but the article focuses almost solely on geology (or soil). To me, terroir encompasses soil, yes, but weather (wind, temperature, etc.) which affects the vines just as much as the soil. Location (flat or hilly, etc.). As Greg said, I’d like to see a follow-on article that focuses on botany. I understand the intent of the article is to debunk the idea that the geology translates to the taste of the wine in the glass. I’m with him there. Hope he gives us more thoughts on the rest!
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Merrill,
I may not be saying anything different from you, but I think of the climate of a plot of land (longer term weather characteristics) as part of the terroir but actual weather in a year as being vintage differences, not terroir differences.
