Terroir Vive la différence

The wine market is currently witnessing a fierce battle between the quest for consistency (or what some would call standardisation) and diversity. This battle has been fought in virtually all consumer markets over the years - from cars, to media, to beer, to music, to banking and retail - to name but a diverse few, with diversity suffering every time.

One of the wonderful things about wine is the inherent originality of each and every bottle. Indeed you could drink a different wine every single day of your life. The wine industry produces such a staggering range of products because there are a multitude of factors that determine the end product.

Different grape variety blends, varying vine-growing and winemaking methods combine to create a huge range of different wines. However, it is “terroir” that has the capacity to make every wine unique. Terroir is best understood as the interaction of a vineyard’s soil, aspect, altitude and climate: grapes have the precious ability to express their own unique terroir though the scents, tastes and visual impact of the wines that they produce.

This is why the majority of European wines are labelled and sold on the basis of where they come from. Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Chianti, Rioja, Bernkastel are all place names or “appellations”. These wines are selling you the taste of their terroir.

Terroir, and the opportunity to taste it, is a marvel but also an obstacle. Producing wines to reflect vineyard terroir generates a mind-boggling range of wines for the consumer to choose from and vintage variation (as a result of varying weather conditions) compounds the complexity.

Unlike in Europe, New World wine production is dominated by enormous corporate entities who appreciate that many consumers are dazzled and confused by the range of appellation wines on offer. As such they seek to eliminate terroir variation and/or sell their wines on the basis of understood and consistent grape variety scents and flavours. Consistency is achieved by varying the blend of terroir each year or even blending wines from different years. In addition, winemakers seek to impose a style on the wines they produce via a greater level of control of the winemaking process. As a result, the role of terroir and the variation that it brings is severely diluted or even eliminated.

The contrast to those making terroir-based appellation wines could not be more stark. The fermentation of wine from grapes is a natural process and their guiding motto is to “have the courage to do nothing” in the cellar so as to best express their terroir in their wines. These people do not regard themselves as “winemakers” but as “guardians of their terroir”.

Providing consistency in the wine market is important. It has expanded the number of consumers and raised quality levels, particularly at the lower end of the market. However, the industry must maintain its diversity and not be reduced to producing a handful of standardised products and tastes, with producers conjuring up variations via “brand differentiation", packaging, image and advertising campaigns.

Rather than seek to loosen the role of terroir (as suggested by a recent EU proposal), producers of appellation wines must better communicate and market the notion that wines come from a specific place and that the purchaser has the opportunity to taste the characteristics of that unique location. It is ironic is it not, that certain standardised New World wines now use brand names and advertising campaigns to evoke the image of a certain romantic vineyard when in fact the influence of that vineyard has been completely blended out.