The Dilution of Terroir
by Guy Woodward
First up, a trigger warning… I’m approaching this article from the premise that terroir exists. It’s a position to which I would hope most readers of this site would subscribe....
Topic: terroir
Tasting Terroir
by Tim Atkin
My scientific credentials are embarrassing. I struggled to get a C grade in Physics with Chemistry O Level in my teens. By dint of rote learning and conversations with winemakers,...
Tailoring Terroir
by Margaret Rand
In London, if you want your friends to hate you, give their dog a squeaky toy. In Ireland, or at least in the house on the West Coast where I’m...
Translation, Treachery And Terroir
by Kate Lofthouse
I think of winemaking as a form of translation. Product A (grapes) is transformed into Product B (wine). Very simple, really. As you will know, traditionally, translation involves the conversion...
Mental Geography
by Andy Neather
It felt mildly embarrassing. A member of the team from Black Chalk was trying to explain to me exactly where their Hampshire vineyard was as we sipped the fine, precise...
The Clay Sea
by John Atkinson MW
In discussions of terroir rocks have exalted status. The journey downwards through the geological record is mostly a search for hard boundaries – chalk, basalt, slate – while the overlying...
Cutting Through The Babble
by Margaret Rand
It struck me, watching Katya Kabanova at Glyndebourne this last summer, that opera has terroir. It also has directors, who fulfil the same role as winemakers, either expressing the terroir...
Wine’s Invisible Cities
by Tom Hewson
Nested in the discussion of “Big” versus “Small” Champagne is an interesting question I saw posed by Oregon winemaker Jason Lett of Eyrie vineyards: “Is the Traditional Method antithetical to...
Luxury Bandits
by John Atkinson MW
Many qualifications have rocks and reefs rousing calm surfaces. Learner drivers are undone by parallel parking. Philosophy undergraduates discover The Spice-Box of Life isn’t a primer for formal logic. The...
The Pursuit Of Subtlety
by Dwight Furrow
If consumers cannot taste “terroir” should the wine world put so much value on place of origin? Margaret Rand raised the issue, on this very site, in an article titled...
Remaking Burgundy
by John Atkinson MW
“In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the...
How much terroir expression do you really want in your wine?
by Margaret Rand
I’ve got a great idea. Every time somebody asks my husband a question, I’m going to answer it for him. And it won’t be the answer he would give, because...