Seemingly entwined with recent debates over matters such as latest winemaking styles or viticultural values is the question: Does wine-related terroir exist anymore?
That's a valid concern, even if a silly one. Of course, terroir exists. Because if it didn’t, entire geographically defined belief systems built upon the premise that terroir accounts for not just differences but also quality distinctions—such as Bordeaux’s grand crus classification, or Germany’s hierarchy of qualitätswein—would come crashing down upon us. How embarrassing.
Not only that, so would the age-old assumption—à la the now-antiquated expression, goût de terroir—that soil can indeed exert both quality and taste differences, despite the related argument recently aired in certain circles that soil cannot impact “flavor” in wine, at least in respect to direct uptake via vine root systems (with seems obvious enough, although the errant conclusion that minerality in wines comes directly from minerals in soils always seems to persist anyway).
What has made the waters murkier in recent years is the observation that in many parts of the New World terroir is simply not that important when it comes to quality; thereby changing how we look at wines even from the Old World. Especially in terms of quality defined by numerical ratings. Unquestionably, numbers are a good thing if you’re looking for an easy way to make quality assessments; at least according to stubborn apologists for 100-point systems. It is here, though, where we begin to step into little piles of smelly stuff, re issues of rightness and wrongness: “Terroirists” vs. manipulators, “natural” vs. "conventional," "authentic" vs. "branding" or "varietal" correctness.
Or to be more specific: Should Alsatian wines be “Parkerized,” Tuscan reds “super-sized,” and all Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons turned into the same brand of “maple syrup” (as an old winemaker/friend Larry Brooks once described them), etc.? What do we tell our staffs, or the guests popping open their iPhones for vintage guides and ratings, what is real and what is not, what matters and what does not?
Sommeliers, whether we like it or not, have become like arbiters of taste when they select wines for their wine lists. Or like modern day priests, having to constantly explain why God (like terroir) is not dead. That it still does make an impact on how wines taste⏤as much, and in many cases more, than the name of a hot brand, a hip winemaker or fashionable grape.
Mr. Brooks, in fact, has also fessed up to once being part of recent winemaker driven movements that have, in many ways, systematically taken terroir-based belief systems apart. He once wrote to me, saying, “I am beginning to conclude that improvements in technique will be the death of terroir,” while citing widely reported experiences, for example, of winemakers in Côte de Nuits taking Pinot noir picked in Côte de Beaune and making them taste like Côte de Nuits—mostly because that’s what gets them higher “scores.”
We once saw the ramifications of that in one of our own Sommelier Journal Tasting Panel pieces on “Oregon’s Cellar Crawl Collection” (published in September 2010), when we asked five experienced Portland sommeliers if they could tell the difference between winemaking and site in a blind tasting of 25 Pinot noirs made by five of Oregon’s most prestigious winemakers, each producing wine from grapes picked at the same time from each other’s vineyards. Only one of the five sommeliers could tell the difference. That is to say, four of the five sommeliers mistook differences in winemaking styles for differences between vineyards in their perceptions of the wines.
Does this mean terroir no longer exists in Oregon? No, it just means winemaking approach often makes a bigger impact than terroir on sensory qualities of wines from top vineyards. Terroir doesn't shift, or disappear, just because winemakers care less about it than their personal styles. As Brooks says, “Terroir is elusive, subtle and difficult conceptually, but just because it is subtle does not mean it is not real.”
If we take Brooks’ words to heart, we need not feel discouraged that vineyard or sub-region distinctions have become blurred. Yet sometimes it is not winemaking techniques that are blurring distinctions. It is the eye of beholders. Case in point: In another one of our Sommelier Journal "Tasting Panel" blind tasting reports—this one on “Sonoma Coast Chardonnays & Pinot Noirs” (June 15, 2011)—there was one ultra-dark, almost ferociously fruit-forward Pinot Noir that was summarily dismissed by our five panelists for being “over-extracted” and “obviously manipulated.” One Master Sommelier (there were three of them on this particular panel) described this wine as “anything but natural.”
The problem? The wine in question turned out to be a Pinot Noir crafted by a producer who is as “natural” as they come: Ehren Jordan, who is well known and respected in the industry for picking his Pinots earlier for lower alcohol and finer balance, employing native yeast, unfiltered/minimalist techniques in the winery, and strictly organic practices in the vineyard—the whole kit and kaboodle. In other words, it wasn’t the wine that was "manipulated," it was our panelists’ perception of what constitutes manipulation. When confronted with a Pinot Noir from a Sonoma Coast vineyard that happens to naturally produce a dark, fruit-forward wine, they could not separate winemaking from terroir; mostly because they assumed that fruit intensity can’t come from a vineyard—at least not one falling within their sphere of expectation.
As sensory profiles of wines such as American Pinot Noir get bigger and darker—and then lighter and more delicate, back again to big and dark, and who-knows-what in generations to come, as more and different wine regions are explored—it may seem that concepts such as terroir are slipping from our grasp, when in reality it is the proverbial slippery slope that unhinges us. Terroir may be dead, but mostly in our heads.
When you think of it, since when are our best wines simple or predictable? By definition, they should be vexing, confounding, occasionally surprising or shocking. In fact, the more natural the style, the more unpredictable the results. They should challenge our senses; hence, continuously teach us more about what we don't know. That's what makes the best wines so interesting, and worthy of being shared with our guests.
Besides, as I heard the French perfumist Alexandre Schmitt once say, “Wine judging is a subjective phenomenon.” It can never be separated from individual perspective. Yet a wine is what it is, no matter what our perspective, our state of mind or intellectual capacity. Or as Schmitt contends, “An assessment may be erroneous, while the sensation cannot be.”
Terroir, that is to say, is usually always there—at least in our best and most interesting wines—whether we recognize it or not.