Will notions of terroir one day become a thing of the past?
Wine has been strongly linked to identity since antiquity. We read of wine consumption, and its importance as an identity marker in such renowned texts as Homer's 'The Odyssey' where barbarism is marked by the lack of knowledge about wine, the lack of cultivated vines, and the consumption of undiluted wines.
Notions of ‘terroir’ may have had their roots during this period, albeit unconsciously, but ‘terroir’ was formed gradually, over many centuries, by the transmission of know-how, the gradual acquisition of knowledge specific to cultivated vines, species of grapes, and local conditions, and the slow adaptation and evolution of many different varieties of grapes to many different climates, altitudes, and processes. It seems today that we forget that the great wines of Alsace, and all the 'petits terroirs' associated with this region, were once no more than a few vines, taken from another, far displaced 'terroir' in an attempt to spread the cultivation of grapes for wine making. This was long before people thought that certain grapes could only realize their full potential in a given environment, with a given soil type, given climatic conditions, and given growing techniques (in other words, before people associated species of grapes with a given ‘terroir’. The vines were adapted to Alsacian conditions, improved upon in the newfound environment, and with time, became wines of reputed quality.
Why then all the fuss over the transplantation of vines today that have been associated with a given ‘terroir’ to new place, in order to form a new, specially adapted variety specific to a region? The problem lies in this notion of ‘terroir’. Once one has learned the meaning of this word, it seems self evident that this idea and that the ‘terroirs’ we recognize today have always existed. If the new, still very young vines, cultivated in the said ‘new world’ are labeled by the same name as that of their old world origin it is frowned upon by the connoisseurs of the modern epoch because it defies the laws of ‘terroir’, this almost deified notion of the modern era. Should these wines be labeled as something new, one would scoff at the ‘invention’ of a new wine that is very little different from that from which it originated. How then do we expand the cultivation of grapes, and make a profit from the sale of the resulting wines?
With notions of ‘terroir’ becoming ever more defined and ever more specific, and with the ever growing amount of publications on wines, their origins, and notions of quality, the wine drinking population is separating into two very distinct groups of consumers- connoisseurs, and non-connoisseurs. Those less knowledgeable about ‘terroirs’ are easily confused by the very specific labeling and the lack of categorization into a broader wine grouping, such as that of ‘merlot’ or ‘pinot noir’. The new tendency of consumers to search for a wine instead of a ‘terroir’ has led winemakers to question their labeling and the strict regulations that come with defining a wine as living up to the given expectations of a specific ‘terroir’. In order to compete with the growing reputation of new world wines and appeal to the masses, some winemakers have begun to leave behind their precious notions of ‘terroir’ and to dumb down their labels.
Whether these changes, often necessary in a world that strives to appeal to a global population, will lead to the eradication of the once cherished notions of ‘terroir’, or to the reinforcement of these notions and the development of new ‘terroirs’, is difficult to say. The wines of the new world, their reputation so debated about in our time, will eventually become accepted wines of quality, most likely with new names and new notions of ‘terroir’, and in a few hundred years everyone will have forgotten that these new varieties were once highly contested and largely rejected as being of an acceptable standard to be classified as a ‘sauvignon blanc’.
Chantal Crenn, Marion Demossier and Isabelle Téchoueyres. “Wine and Globalisation” in Anthropology of Food, Dec 2004.
Demossier, Marion. “The Quest for Identities: Consumption of Wine in France” in Anthropology of Food Oct 2001
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The Industry Life Cycle: Depletion makes way for innovation in the Global Wine Industry. http://www.lifetimegrowth.com/business/WineProfile.pdf. 2006. Accessed on 23, Feb 2011.