Literally, this French word means “soil”. But for wine-makers, terroir is much more slippery. So slippery, in fact, that when oenologists, viticulturists and other interested parties got together to decide on a definition at a conference at the University of California, Davis, last year, they failed.
Conventionally, terroir is a geographical term. It associates the character of a wine with the particular soil and often also with the microclimate in which the grapes were grown. Location is everything.
So-called “Old World” wine-producers in Europe have clung to the idea that when it comes to Pinot noir grapes, for example, the Burgundy region is peculiarly blessed with the kind of soil and climate…
