concept of terroir

[stevebody]

Minor point, but I identified Ron Yabut from Austin Robaire as "Ron Mawby", who is actually my insurance agent.

I don't think the statue analogy works that well. The artist can select the stone and use his/her considerable skill to cut carefully but the vintner has far, far more choices than that, from root cuttings and clones to trellising to canopies to brix to techniques for crushing and pressing, etc., etc. Therefore, far more opportunity to do something that imposes human will upon grapes. It's almost unavoidable. That said, one of the reasons that this argument always makes me grind my teeth is that the terroir elements the grapes possess in the first place have to be prominent and identifiable enough for them to have any distinction. When that's present, it would take a considerable amount of effort (this from three Woodinville winemakers) to avoid the characteristics of the terroir. That gravelly quality that Bordeaux shows would be nearly impossible to remove altogether, according to winemakers I've asked. Some growing areas simply don't show up as a distinctive set of characteristics and the wines made there shouldn't be judged harshly (IMHO) because of that. Lack of environmental traits IS that wine's terroir. That's what gets me so tickled when some of my Pinot-weenie customers talk about California Pinots being too big. "Too big" is the terroir for Pinot made in CA. As Brian Loring said in his Detroit Wine Society inquisition, "Do you expect me to apologise for being from California? This is what our Pinot tastes like." (I'm sorry, Brian. I probably paraphrased that completely wrong.)

The older I get, the more I value simple balance in wines. Balance and grace of the elements. If that description happens to include some terroir traits, great. But it doesn't determine how I'll feel about the final product.