Terroir may be the most important word in wine and also one of the least useful when left unexplained. Some people treat terroir as an
Tag: winemaking
Promontory Wines and the Slow Art of Winemaking
I’ve been writing about wine for about 15 years and one of the most persistent themes I’ve covered is that winemaking should be considered an
The Technology vs. Terroir False Dilemma
Debates that oppose “technology” to “terroir” treat winemaking as a zero-sum game in which each technological intervention diminishes site expression. This framing misdescribes how quality
Terroir as Interpretation: Why Preserving Place is Always a Style Choice
Let’s retire the pious fiction that the winemaker who “lets the site speak” abstains from style, as if terroir were a shy woodland creature spooked
Winemaking and Artmaking
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen this argument in print but it has really become standard fare. Tim James in World of Fine Wine used
Is Wine a Living Organism?
At first glance, this question seems fanciful— the kind of romantic flourish found in the waxy prose on wine labels. Surely, wine cannot be alive
Exploring the Philosophy of Food and Wine 