11/8/09
Well, I’ve made an effort to problematise the notion of terroir once on this blog in a post entitled “A Wine from Nowhere”. Here I wish to raise further questions. And to be honest, it’s not just about terroir. It’s also about fighting for the idea that these “metaphysical” questions concerning wine and its production are of worth. I am still not happy with the anti-intellectual sentiments I perceive as being present when it comes to vinous matters. There is a time to drink and enjoy (the sensual should always be primary, questions arise from pleasure), there is a need for history (it provides insight into why we derive pleasure from something as well as adding to the pleasure derived), there are important practical issues needing to be addressed (these keep the pleasure coming and improve it), yes. But thought must always try and over extend itself as well, at least as far as I’m concerned (it protects pleasure from attacks and sustains its always fragile existence).
Let us recap-
I started with what I believed to be a great beginning in James Hook’s articulation of terroir as:
Soil + Climate = grapes which gets turned into wine
Brian Croser and Campbell Mattinson made me want to tweak that equation a little and move grapes to the left hand side.
Soil + Climate + Grapes = Wine sitting somewhere on of the continuum of Terroir.
That is, Croser’s model of “Distinguished Sites” and Campbell Mattinson’s thoughts got me thinking that they way different grapes reacted with different soils and climates needed them to be placed in the equation, not in the equation’s solution.
Then I spoke about vintage and time as part of what makes a wine, as time and space are inter-related & environment/climate changes from vintage to vintage. So:
Soil + Climate (as a general concept) + Time (climate as specific from vintage to vintage) + Grapes = Wine on terroir’s continuum.
or to simplify
Soil + (Climate + Time) + Grapes = Wine as terroir driven
Something was still missing. It seems obvious now, but it has taken until this point for me to wrap my head around it enough to attempt its articulation. How do the grapes planted in the soil, exposed to the climate over time, become wine? By themselves? No, winemakers matter. The cliché of winemaker as custodian of nature and nothing more needs to be questioned. There is no such thing as a non-interventionalist approach to wine as no wine would be made without planting/tending/vinification. That is, intervention. Even the very popular notion of minimal intervention assumes that a winemaker is in the equation. But before the winemaker, we have the viticulturalist. The viticulturalist takes care of how the grapes are treated whilst the equation plays out, but is also part of the equation. Man does not exist seperately from nature. Man is within nature, altering it. Nature alters of its own course. To go all Bataillian on your arse, Nature is against itself, thus weather patterns change, by themselves as well as in relation to Man’s endeavours and their effect on weather/climate.
Soil + (Climate + Time) + Grapes + Viticulture + Winemaking = Wine as (more or less) terroir driven
Winemaking can be seen as artifice. More or less artifice may be used, but man is always intruding into nature to represent their vision of what the “Distinguished Site” should produce- The winemaker’s idea of what the wine is supposed to represent so to speak, or winemaking and terroir seen as mimesis. It’s high time to put man, in the forms of viticulture and winemaking, into the equation. It is the only philosophically sound thing to do.
James Halliday wrote an interesting piece in The Weekend Australian (August 8-9, 2009) discussing the history of Brokenwood’s Graveyard Vineyard, its plantings and the alteration of clones and grapes used to produce The Graveyard Shiraz, one of Australia’s ten best known Shirazes, and a wine now viewed as one of the most pure expressions of terroir. This history, this story, was not of the magical sprouting of vines and grapes and wine from a piece of dirt over time. It spoke of empirical efforts by the winemaker and viticulturalist to let the soil and climate express itself in the manner they thought was best (and few would argue against their vision). It was a vision which sought a quality expression of terroir, and here quality enters the equation. So terroir not only concerns the right varietals planted in the right soil taking into account the climate, but the interaction of clones that were tried and either discarded or continued, in an attempt by Man to make a wine that represents best its place and time, its origins. This is my attempt to address the intelligent question raised by Julian Coldrey and Mark Gifford, of the role of quality in terroir. I won’t get it bang on here, but I think the answer lies in discussion of representation/mimesis; what is the winemaker & viticulturalist aiming to represent?
Soil + (Climate + Time) + Grape (including varietal and clone) + Viticulture + Winemaking (both as attempts at representation) = Wine as more or less terroir driven.
Getting complex isn’t it? Good, I think it should be.
So, before a giant leap off the cliff, and after expanding the equation for the sake of clarity and rigour, let’s simplify it again, keeping what’s left out now as implied.
Soil + Climate + Grape + Viticulture + Winemaking = Wine on terroir’s continuum.
Now for the leap. In a playful manner, after I wrote of wine needing to be seen as a cultural artifact, Julian Coldrey of Full Pour fame gave me more food for thought;
“If terroir is the sum of the parts that go to making up a particular wine, should (local, regional, national) culture be included in one’s definition of terroir?”. My answer now, after seeing mimesis as crucial to the terroir equation is an unequivocal yes. The quality that is aimed at via Man’s attempt to best represent a place and a time has its own roots in culture. How could it be otherwise? This is the realm of styles of wine, and places stylistic endeavours firmly within the field of nature and terroir, not as oppositional forces at all. Artifice, history and culture are part of terroir in that Man seeks to get the best he can imagine out of what the nature that he/she is part of (yet which always engulfs him/her too) provides. So a final equation and simplification (this is concrete mathematical poetry not pure algebra)-
Soil + (Climate + Time) + Grapes (varietal and clone) + Viticulture & Winemaking (as attempts to represent an imagined ideal of nature’s possibilities, and informed by culture & history) = Wine as a more or less succesful interpretation of a place in one form.
or, simplified
Soil + Climate+ Grapes + Viticulture & Winemaking + Culture = Wine as terroir
And all wines sit on the continuum of terroir and speak of a place, either small or large. It’s just some do it better than others.
Is culture not an integral part of the winemaking and viticulture? Think old world vs. new World.
Indeed, culture must be an integral part of the winemaking and viticulture Michael, and if anything in the above model is correct (a big if, it is speculative philosophy) then I'd best ponder it's ramifications with regards to old world and new world wine.
It's a very new model to my knowledge, needing to be refined, and it may well be shot down quickly. Who knows
cheers
j
Jeremy
Like the concept here, sort of like stepping back from the canvas and having a ponder. I agree culture is involved but that in my eyes sits within the viti+winemaking bracket. How you complete these tasks relate to the history (or lack of it) and the reliance on the cultural influences. For example, certain picking dates in the bordeaux may be related to specific markers in a particular vineyard which may be completely different to how I may perceive ripeness – thus culture links closely to the V+WM.
Also soil is a residual feature of weathering and time – depth, microbial activity, nutrient content etc etc varies from metre to metre – BUT there has been quite a distinctive correlation of where the soil sits in relation to the topography which has classified many wine sites over time. Thus "aspect" is a good addition to this category as it accounts for the placement of the soil in space and how it relates to climate, V+WM etc.
I like the thinking – work away at it and you may get you E=MC2 moment…
Cheers
Mark
Thanks Mark
It's great to read someone enjoys the quasi-philosophical rants on this blog!
I'm having a day off after a few appointments. Drank a wonderful 2009 Margaret River Viognier yesterday, will TN it soon, reckon you might like it
Will ponder your thoughts and see what more I can come up with. Thanks again, it's much appreciated.
cheers
j
I like this piece – despite how it may initially appear to some readers, careful reading reveals it to be an excellent first attempt (in what I'm sure will be a long-term, iterative process
) at describing a very complex concept with some degree of elegance and simplicity, and without becoming reductive.
cheers,
GP
Thanks GP. A first attempt and one needing much tweaking! Spoke to a long time Wine Enthusiast today & showed him the piece. He raised some more interesting questions/points to add to those already posed above.
Mind you, I am very much aware that this sort of conceptual/speculative approach is not of interest to many Wine Enthusiasts. Certainly, there is no need to think in this manner in order to be able to enjoy and explore wine in valuable and intelligent ways. The more diverse our collective approaches to wine are, the happier I will be
cheers
j
Looooots of food for thought here. The relationship between perceived quality and terroir deserves its own post (or tome) so, like you, I won't touch on it here. What's provocative about your post is that it defines the geography and the players. Terroir is an incredibly contested term, yet one that seems to have enormous currency, so it's appropriate to problematise its boundaries.
I guess to a large extent, how you define terroir depends on how you pose its question and how you'd like it to operate. Is terroir the sum of those things that can't be changed about a wine? If so, exclude winemaking and viticulture (but, arguably, not some aspects of culture). I've some sympathy for this view, as I'm an essentialist at heart and believe the truths to certain grape/region/site combinations are more true than others.
However, it's also quite a narrow view and becomes itself a battleground of winemaking intent. Whether a productive battleground is a separate question.
Alternatively, does terroir drag in a whole host of things that make up the uniqueness of a wine, including very human endeavours like viticulture/winemaking? In some respects, this is an attractive view because it centralises our role in creating wine, hopefully not to deify winemakers but to acknowledge the relative influences at play and position them in ways that make sense. The question of culture is especially interesting in this light because can illuminate some tacit influences over wine style that would otherwise fall between terroir and winemaking stools.
I don't have the answers to all this, and to an extent it's a moot point so long as one defines one's terms a priori, but it's still relevant if only because, apparently, our industry's future depends on it.
Best we agree on what "it" is, then?
Very interesting to see a throw away comment, like my 'Soil + Climate = grapes which gets turned into wine,' spark some creatinve thought.
You are on the right track, however I don't think anyone will ever break terrior down to a simple equation. Although it is possible to have a working knowledge. Even the ancients knew to pick one side of the mango tree first because it tasted better (sun facing).
I was talking to my business partner, Derek Cameron, yesterday on this topic. He is able to pick the health and quality of a potato pivot (irrigated stantion) as he walks through it. He is sub-conciously able to access the 'terrior' of the potatoes. He notes he can't do this from photography alone, he needs all five senses.
Later in the day I met with Don Oliver, Olivers Taranga. We were standing in a vineyard that was graded to 'Grange.' Don was sure that the block was good enough to make a high level of wine – but there was some doubt as the winery felt it was 'B grade.' They felt it looked too shabby to be an A+.
With Don's knowledge of his terrior and dispite what it looked like it, he was right.
Julian- Thanks for some more excellent points. I'm thinking I'll "let terroir be" for a little while on this blog, as I seriously need time to let the fantastic input I have received on this post gel into further concrete thoughts and ideas. Another wine friend of mine stated something that made me laugh, but also has its merits- "Terroir is a fact. Get over it". He was interested in how the notion of terroir drives desires, and wonders why our passions are so stirred by it's existence. He is somewhat Kleinian (object relations wise). I have plenty of time for that.
I particularly like your comment of "…to a large extent, how you define terroir depends on how you pose its question and how you'd like it to operate". A very important idea that needed to be voiced at this stage IMHO.
A questions always delineates the potential parameters of a reply. That is to say, questions are always already looking for a certain responses more than others. My questioning of terroir certainly concerns how I would like it to operate. Desires are steering my thoughts at all times, as they do everyone's. Useless to think otherwise. Am I being essentialist?
And, to continue, as my platform is angry at my verbose nature again ;)….
Finally, and once again as with everyone else who has contributed, I am delaying my response to their thoughts for now. But I can't go past your last paragraph, which I sense is playfully provocative too. Why? Jancis Robinson has just written a piece in GT wine (August/September 2009) which questions whether single-site wines (concentrated terroir, so to speak) ARE really the way forward for our industry. Perhaps Australia, as a wine producer, needs to think further on its strategies here? Maybe we are thinking in too reactive a way to the questioning of our "model" of wine? Here she refers to Grange and innovative blending, something we have both discussed as an integral and important part of our wine making heritage. Schubert, O'Shea, Mattinson & Walsh
etc.
So maybe we've (by we I mean myself and many others who've advocated the need), got it wrong when we consider the only way forward for Oz wine is promoting our distinctive terroir. Perhaps a multi-pronged and unique approach including both making our diverse terroir and our innovative approaches to wines could be useful in terms of pulling Australia's wine industry through tough times?
cheers
j
James- Thanks for taking the time to re-write your response after it somehow got lost on this platform! It's appreciated.
Speaking for myself, a lot of the "throw away comments" you make are extremely stimulating. I have many more responses and posts I would like to voice that have their roots in the Wine Fight Club e-zine. In a way, I interpret WFC to be somewhat about throwing up thoughts to stimulate debate. It's one of the many reasons I enjoy it.
Certainly I will never capture terroir in words or equations, though hopefully I can help it be thought about in different ways. Ultimately I think your reference to it here as being more intuitive and relating to a person's direct ability to interact with nature in a less overtly cerebral/theoretical way is the most pertinent point of all.
You, Mark Gifford, Derek Cameron and Don Oliver are going to have a far greater grasp of terroir, specifically in the practical sense of assessing worth and value and making the right decisions, than I can ever hope to have sitting here and at my computer.
I am always primarily grateful to the viticulturalists and wine makers of this world for pouring their passions and thoughts into a bottle of wine for me to enjoy and think about. I guess, thinking back on this post now, it may have been may little attempt to acknowledge their value to me as a wine lover, as much as the value of a site or terroir.
Without, as Julian mentions, deifying them. That would be patronising, and their is no need to patronise the wine makers I love. Just a desire to flag their importance and worth.
Thank you again for taking the time to respond to my musings.
cheers
j