Myths and facts about France's winemaking terroir

Wine buffs love the French word terroir.

It’s not a word that translates into the English language.

Some people think it is just the soil-type of a vineyard but that’s only one aspect of what it means.

Terroir is the combination of all the natural factors which are believed to give a wine its character, rather than the winemaking practices used to make it.

Terroir covers the climate of the region. The average temperature, the number of sunny days, the amount of wind, average rainfall and likelihood of frosts, flooding and hail storms. It also includes the local conditions of the vineyard such as slope, altitude, proximity to rivers, lakes or the sea, orientation and finally, the soil type.

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The concept of terroir is the basis of the whole Appellation d’Origin Protégé (AOP) system of French wine classification. Terroir is what is believed to define the general character of the wines of a region.

One of the main reasons why irrigation is prohibited in the production of AOP wines is that it effectively alters the terroir. While that is true to a certain extent AOP rules cover other factors such as vineyard practice, yield limits, blends (or not) of grape varieties and winemaking practices like barrel-ageing. 

However, terroir exists whether or not people have created an appellation to define it. 

Every vineyard in the world has terroir. Some obviously have better terroir than others and some are believed to give a unique flavour to the wines made from grapes grown on that particular patch of earth.

Each grape variety has a range of temperatures required for it to ripen well. At the cooler limit of that range, the wines will be more acidic, lighter-bodied and fresher-tasting. At the warmer end, they will be higher in alcohol, rounder in flavour and more spicy than fruity. All the other factors listed above can alter the ripening pattern of the grapes in the vineyard, which will affect the character of the wines they produce.

This is separate from, but related to, the weather conditions during the year which is what makes wine from one vintage different to another.

How important is soil type? 

Vines need soils that can retain enough rainwater to feed the vine without becoming too wet.

Too much water leads to high vigour, diluted grapes and higher risk of fungal disease. Vines also tend to produce the best wines when they are under some stress. This is because we don’t want great big bunches of big grapes to make wine.

We want to concentrate the flavours, especially from the skins, and to ensure that all the grapes ripen evenly.

Pruning and other cultivation methods such as leaf-removal and trellising are used to counter vigour but having soils which help, rather than hinder, is a big factor. In fact, I would say that much of what is considered to be good terroir is simply that which requires less effort to achieve ripe, disease-free grapes. Not only does this make it easier to produce a good wine, less effort in the vineyard means more time and money to spend on winemaking and marketing.

Having said that, soil type does affect the flavour of wine. Vines grown on alkaline soils tend to have higher acidity. Vines grown on clay tend to produce more balanced wines. Vines which suffer from a lack of nitrogen because of low organic matter can produce wines which smell and taste of minerals like iodine and sulphur.

These are all secondary effects, which come about mainly by the way yeasts respond to the levels of acids, salts and nutrients in the juice, as opposed to actual minerals ending up in the wine.

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What is the approach of New World producers?

The nuances in wine flavour that come from the terroir are probably only appreciated by around 5% of consumers. Most people just want to drink wines that are well made and smooth. New World producers realise this and put most of their efforts into creating vineyards to achieve that result.

In much of the New World, irrigation is used to replace rainfall and to even out irregularities in soil water content.

There are vast areas of Australia and Chile that could not produce grapes at all without irrigation. However, it’s hard to see any terroir influences in wines from those vineyards.

The general view in Australia used to be that ‘Terroir is just an excuse for bad winemaking’, though nowadays the most ambitious estates are extolling the virtues of their unique terroir.

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Can soil minerals impact wine flavour?

For the 5% of wine connoisseurs who do look for the hallmarks of terroir, it can become a bit of an obsession. It is true that wines from the limestone soils of Chablis seem to taste of chalk. 

People talk about wines having aspects of granite, slate and other minerals that they associate with the soil in the vineyard. However, scientific studies show that while minerals may vary in vineyard soils and that may affect growth and ripening, those minerals don’t actually flavour the wine directly. There is no actual chalk in a bottle of Chablis.

Many of the commercial wines that people drink have been manipulated by winemaking techniques like oak-chips, designer-yeasts and softening agents.

At the other end of the scale, most so-called Natural wines have noticeable winemaking faults that obscure any nuances of terroir.

However, there is something fascinating and beautiful about drinking a wine that is true to its terroir and whose flavours come primarily from the vines and the soils, carefully tended by vignerons who respect and understand their land.

Jonathan Hesford has a Postgraduate Diploma in Viticulture and Oenology from Lincoln University, New Zealand and is the owner, vigneron and winemaker of Domaine Treloar in the Roussillon.