Posted on: Wednesday, May 25, 2005

RAISE A GLASS
Taste the hillside or sea in wine

By Heath Porter

"Why are you here? What do you want? You cannot be here. You must leave now." Even in French, these words didn't sound that nice, especially coming from a burly, weather-beaten, 300-pound winemaker.

I tried to plead stupid (not a stretch), and apologize in every way I knew possible. "Please, you must understand," I tried to say in my very poor French. "I'm a wine geek from the U.S., and I'm here to study your vineyards." She looked puzzled. "I mean no harm," I vowed, "I just want to ask you some questions about the terroir."

"That's fine,"she replied, "but I can't understand a word you say with that mouth full of dirt."

Ten minutes (and two bottles of Evian) later, I returned to my questions. "What kind of rocks are these in the vineyard? What's the rest of the soil composed of? How deep is the soil here? Do you get much sunlight and how much annual rainfall? Do you have any foie gras? How old are the vines here? Can I have a cold beer? Pretty reasonable questions, I thought, but obviously not to intriguing to mademoiselle.

"If it's the soil you question, I will tell you," she said, "but if it's the terroir you wish to know, then look up, down and all around." And with that, she stomped away.

Terroir ("tear-waar") is one of the hottest terms in the wine world. The word means soil, yes, but, as my winemaker friend was indicating, it's so much more — the entire environment in which the grapes grow and how that affects their winemaking potential. The term has been around for centuries and doesn't translate perfectly to English. There are many different contributions, components and factors that go into the terroir of a wine — none of them exactly measurable.

Who cares, you ask? It's dirt, grapes grow in it, people step on 'em, and we drink it.

If it was only that easy. This is a subject that countless books and articles have been written about.

Off course, soil is a huge player in the equation. There are many different types: limestone, granite, clay, chalk, sand, slate and more. Most of the great vineyards in the world are blends of many types. Another issue is how fertile the soil is, how rich in nutrients. Unlike almost all other plants, the last thing you want in growing wine grapes is fertile soil; you want them to struggle a bit. At the same time, wine grapes do need mineral-rich soil.

Does the soil hold a high natural water content or do the vines have to dig for their juice? Clay holds higher water content and makes for much friendlier confines in an arid environment. Sand or gravel offer better drainage but promote a deeper root system because of the lack of water. On top of that (literally) is topsoil or large rocks that could surround the rootstock. In the south of France, specifically the region of Chateauneuf du Pape, large pebbles called galets surround the vines, adding drainage but also absorbing daytime sun and keeping the vines warm at night. They also protect the soil from erosion and help root systems develop.

This leads us to another key factor: temperature. Sunlight provides the motor to produce sugar in grapes through photosynthesis. Without sugar there is no alcohol, and no wine. However, too much sun isn't always a good thing. Different grapes have different skin thicknesses, and deal with their ripening individually, so the winemaker can plant appropriately for the weather.

Sunlight does more than ripen grapes: keeping soil warm at night (by means of radiation from rocks that hold heat) and keeping leaves and grape bunches dry to ward off mildews, pests and fungus. Some grapes, such as the thicker-skin varietal mourvedre, love the heat. This is a grape at home in the deep south of France. Mourvedre thrives in Bandol, on the Mediterranean Sea, ripe and earthy. This is a very arid area, with clay and chalk soils, but because the grape gathers water from the clay and can carry high alcohol without losing its balance, the heat is okay. In contrast, too much heat would kill the balance in a thinner-skinned grape like grenache, driving its alcohol over the top, and virtually leaving its acid unnoticed.

One of the most underrated of all influences is the placement of the vine in the vineyard. Slope, altitude and positioning all play a role. Slopes can range from almost vertical, as in some of the great vineyards of Germany's Mosel region, to a more moderate incline such as the renowned Cote d'Or of Burgundy. The one thing that many of the great vineyards of the world have in common is the direction of exposure (though, of course, there are exceptions). In the northern hemisphere, most of the great vineyards face east and south; in the southern hemisphere, they face northeast, obtaining the best of the early-morning sunlight and holding it through the day. This is very important in cooler growing environments.

Hillsides also help protect the grapes from storms, allow for a longer growing season and for better leaf and grape exposure to the sun, and have soil that tends to be more shallow, with good drainage. And the hillside's differences in altitude promote different sub-climates — warm to cool, wet to dry, there are more sub-zones of hot and cool air that differ vastly from day to night.

How important are nearby bodies of water? Very. Besides the obvious — water for irrigation, waterways for shipping, large bodies of water also bring a great consistency to temperature variation, conducting warmth and reflecting sun onto the vines. In really cold spots, such as Germany and Austria, lakes provide a natural protection from freezing. The entire winegrowing region of California's west coast is helped by the Pacific breezes that cool off the vines at night; some areas also rely on morning fogs as a natural filter from the sunlight. One can only imagine the qualities added to great Bordeaux wines by both the nearby Atlantic Ocean and the Gironde Estuary. Also, three rivers flow through Bordeaux.

All of these things come together to form what we call terroir. Obviously, I've left out many other facts. We haven't discussed micro-, meso-, or macro- climates, or the vigor of the vines, or thermal zones. Each of these needs a chapter.

What is important to remember is that all of these things occur naturally, without huge intervention by man. To me, terroir summarizes the distinctive characteristics that wine develops in a particular location, characteristics that wouldn't be duplicated if the vines grew elsewhere. Wine DNA, perhaps.

So when you're in France, or any wine region, for that matter, feel free to look up, down and all around, as mademoiselle suggested. Play in the dirt (maybe don't taste it) and smell the vines. Just be sure to look both ways for mademoiselle. She might be firing up the John Deere to run down the American wine geek doing dirt angels in the vineyard.

Heath Porter recently returned from his honeymoon in France 20 pounds heavier. Write him at porter_heath@yahoo.com. The Raise a Glass column, which is written by a rotating group of local beverage experts, is published every other week.