Terroir Makes You Think

I have never been one to complain about varietal labeling. It’s convenient for consumers and the varietal of grape is an important indicator of what the finished product tastes like. Of course the terroir of the vineyard site matters as well but a bottle labeled with a place will not tell you much about what is in the bottle unless you are very familiar with wines from that region or vineyard.,

Either you know the vineyard/region or you don’t. If you do, then knowing the varietal will be helpful as well. If you don’t know the vineyard or region, then identifying the wine by the location of the vineyard won’t help. Thus, consumers found the practice of regional labeling, in the so-called “old world” regions, baffling and many now use varietal labeling as well.

But there is a  beneficial consequence of having the precise location in which the grapes were grown on the label. It makes you think not only about geography but about culture, traditions, yeasts, and farming. Having a specific location on the label reminds you that behind the wine in the bottle there are real people who struggled for years to bring that liquid to you.

It’s always been the (to me) exotic names of far off places, and the expectation that something unique and particular happens there, that made wine fascinating. The old world style of identifying a wine by place was a catalyst for the imagination; the less familiar the place was the more it fascinated me.

So wine is not just a matter of sensory pleasure. It doesn’t merely taste good. It spurs the imagination and then becomes an aspiration and guiding light for the pursuit of knowledge. The more you can learn about the people who make the wine and the sites where the grapes are grown, the more pleasure one can enjoy from what is in the glass. The variations in winemaking, farming practices, weather, geology, and culture ensure that wine is both unpredictable and singularly illuminating, always hearkening back to those people and that place regardless of the transformations the wine undergoes in the bottle.

Of course, this knowledge that we devote many hours to acquiring is utterly useless. Unless you are angling for a job in the wine industry knowledge of what goes into a bottle serves no larger purpose. It won’t increase your bank account, make you famous, or enable you to acquire power. It does nothing but add to the allure of what is in your glass.

But perhaps that is knowing’s highest calling—knowledge that serves no purpose aside from the satisfaction it brings, an object of love. A world of unreflective bliss in which everyone satisfies their desires but no one knows anything would be a world sorely lacking. A wine world in which we taste with enjoyment but no one has any idea of what their tasting would be equally deficient.

Terroir is the engine of that knowledge.