Terroir

Terroir is an interpretive word: weather, soil, slope, vine, and human habit showing up in a grape, a cheese, or an olive. It is not a TTB Appellation of origin. In the U.S., an appellation of origin — country, state, county, or AVA — is a labeling geography ¹. You can taste two Napa Valley wines that share an AVA and still disagree about terroir. The label answered a legal where; terroir is an argument about why.

Do not print “terroir” on a bakery page as decoration. Bread has flour, water, microbes, and an oven. If a mill or a fog line matters, name those facts on Milling or San Francisco, not this word.

What can be observed #

A cooler site may keep more acid; a warmer one may ripen tannin differently — astringency is still saliva proteins binding phenolics ². Fog in Sonoma County is a climate claim from growers, not a tasting score. Vintage is the year the fruit was grown. Vineyard is the planted place.

If you cannot point at a grape, a weather pattern, or a regulation, you are writing atmosphere. Return to Wine and Grape.