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Dan,
Speaking of terrior, the terrior around Destin Fl. can never express the thanks we feel for all the things you have done for the Destin Charity Wine Auction. Our Foundation supports critical charities helping "Children in Need" and Kosta-Browne's generous support over the last 15 months has enabled us to raise more than $1,000,000 for our kids. Thanks to you and Michael.
Lamar Conerly
President DCWA

PS Sorry about the results of the BBQ throwdown.

There seems to be this prevailing notion that "terrior" is some sort of magical quality that winemakers labor to obtain. I would go so far as to say that a wine will reflect its place unless a winemaker goes to great lengths for it to not do so! Another notion is that a piece of ground has some sort of "truth" and that the wines from this site are destined to taste a certain way. This is crap. With the variety of decisions that need to be made before a vineyard is planted, human influence is a huge factor in what the end product will be like. Then we go a step further and include the decisions made in managing a vineyard and again the human influence on the end product is huge. You can take the best vineyard in the world and if you don't thin shoots, pull leaves and drop crop you are not going to get a great wine. The wine is made in the vineyard, not by the vineyard, but in the vineyard through dilegent farming practices.
This is not to negate the importance of site; the soils, aspect and elevation will have enormous impacts on the finished wine. The better the site, in terms of a number of characteristics, the easier it will be to farm in a way to produce quality wine. If left to the hands of incompetence, even the best site will not achieve greatness.
In the cellar the winemaker makes a multitude of decisions, most of which center around making the wine taste good and be of utmost quality. The decisions will have, to varying degrees, an impact on the wine and its inherent or site specific qualities. It is a continuum of possibilities, not a black and white designation. A wine will, depending on the decisions made by the winemaker, express its site of origin to some degree. Highly manipulated wines less so, true 'hands off' wines more so.
I know from my own experience that I never approach my vineyard or winemaking from the standpoint of "what do I do to make this wine reflect its 'terrior' ?". I look at it from the standpoint of wine quality " what can I do to make the best wine possible from this site" ? Because of my own convictions, not unique to myself but common to most good winemakers, the best wines are the ones where I have done just enough. I have done as many things right in the vineyard as time, money, and nature will allow. If this is done well then all that is needed in the cellar is that which keeps the wine clean, fresh and in balance.
'Terrior' isn't magic. 'Terrior' is the result of a vineyard centered approach to wine quality and the confidence that the fruit is all that is needed to make great wine.

Sorry... needed to point out the consistent mis-spelling of terroir. (I know, I am a smart ass)

I suspect that we are in the midst of a very difficult period for true terroir driven wines.. and I think the reasons are numerous. The result, an inevitable convergance of style where only the very top sites and blends will seperate themselves from the rest.

By way of example, a couple years ago I organized a panel discussion and tasting on behalf of the Alexander Valley Winegrowers, held for the Society of Wine Educators at their annual conference. The tasting was entitled "Discerning the Differences: A Tasting of Napa Valley and Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon." Twelve wines were tasted blind, six from each AVA. Among the wines tasted were Jordan, Silver Oak (both AV and NV), Swanson, Geyser Peak Kumelis Vineyard Designate, Simi Landslide.... 4 winemakers and 1 viticulturist, as well as one prominent MS and Steve Heimoff, Wine Writer at Wine Enthusiast sat on the panel. Each person in attendance was simply asked to taste the wine then try to identify it as Napa or Alexander Valley. We then, by show of hands, saw how well we could "discern" the differences between the two regions.

Getting to the point.. only one of the twelve wines was definitively selected as being of its own AVA. The rest of the wines split the audience, nearly 50/50 each time. Both Silver Oak wines were mis-identified.

It was clear that no terroir driven similarity was evident among the wines selected. More attributable to style was whether the wine was hillside or mountain sourced as apposed to valley floor sourced. Heimoff noted that the results of this tasting were consistent with a tasting he hosted with a group of winemakers and he believed that the differences between regions were melting away. As other areas caught up to Napa Valley and the best sites for growing grapes in areas like Alexander Valley were planted and matured, the wines were stylistically beginning to converge.

As you have already mentioned, uniform farming practices is certainly another cause for convergance Michel Chapoutier talks about this when he sells the concept of Biodynamic farming. If most wineries use the same commercial fertilizers or employee the same cover crops or do any number of other things (I am out of my element talking about viticulture) then in essense you are taking away crucial elements of terroir and destroying site specificity.

Lets also not forget the effect of the winemaking community, the level in which they work together and share practices, in developing a local style that is often confused with terroir. Best example is Italy, where local practice has been codified into DOC law. Not hard to see how Brunello, with its long barrel aging requirements has a reputation for big, dry tannic wines, and how most attribute it to "terroir." Same might be said for the "Rutherford Dust" characteristic of Rutherford Bench Napa Valley Cabs, specially of the 70's and 80's... is this true terroir or is this simply uniform methods, clones, and vineyard maturity expressing itself?

I really hope terroir wins the day, as that is what I think wine is all about. Those are the wines I want to market, and more importantly, drink.

As you said, Dan, terrior is the expression of place. However, it would seem that the interpretation of place is up to the place, the vineyard manager, the winemaker and also, the wine drinker. The winemaker strives to get the perfect expression from a vineyard. If successful, it can be a great wine. Does that make it more or less of a wine than a great blend? Not in my opinion.

If the true expression of a vineyard is a particular taste of raspberry and a wine drinker doesn't care for that flavor, the drinker may not like the wine. If the consumer is always right, does that make the wine not good? No. But what if that wine is blended with another vineyard whose expression is blackberry and the resulting wine tastes like boysenberry which the wine drinker loves? Does that make the wine good? No. The point of this absurd analogy is that wine appreciation is an individual thing. Don't we all have friends who generally like the same wine we do but every now and then we have completely different reactions to the same wine? Individualism at work.

Single vineyard wines hit great highs with that particular expression of their place. Many times, that single expression is intense but can also be (but not necessarily be) more one-dimensional. Some blends seem to have more complexity because of the multi-sourcing. If wine is blended and all the sources are great, the resulting blend can also be great - as in the KB appellation wines. If a winery maintains great quality control, they can produce great single vineyards or great blends - again, as KB does. Unfortunately, too many times blends are the result of a decision on what to do with inferior juice.

Here's a question for you - can blending create synergies in wine? Can the resulting blend be greater than the sum of the sources? I tend to doubt it because I do believe that to make great wine you have to start with great grapes but just because you start with great grapes doesn't mean you'll make great wine. On the other hand, can the resulting complexity be a plus over any/all of the individual sources?

But what do I know? I work in an office. I do know that I LOVE your wine.

Thanks for this year's allocation!

Fred

This is one of my favorite subjects/interests in wine and I enjoy hearing opinions from experts such as yourself. I absolutely believe in the concept, but I must admit that it is more based on intuition than cold hard facts. The struggle for me is to differentiate between the effects of man made decisions vs the expression of the land. Even when trying a horizontal of a particular vineyard from different producers, I'm always wondering how dominant the winemaker's hand is. I did have a somewhat revelatory experience last week when I felt like I was truly beginning to understand wines made from Rosella's Vineyard. I'm not very good at explaining it, but it's a sense of recognition and understanding when having a wine made from this amazing vineyard. Obviously I can't wait to try the KB wine from here. I look forward to reading other's opinions and can't thank the KB crew enough for your passion and love that shines through in your wines.

My opinion as a wine consumer is that terroir does lend itself to uniqueness....but I don't think it is simply a uniqueness of place. In many cases....if not most (again, my opinion)....that unique quality is brought on by the winemaker. The KB Kanzler is a good example. I have had the Kanzler from other producers, and while it does have it's sense of place, the KB style puts it's own stamp on that sense of place.

For me, it would be easier to pull the Michael Browne style from a batch of wines blind versus the expression of terroir. While the fruit identifies the place, how that fruit is blended is often more important in creating my impression of the final product....be it positive or negative.

Terroir is an important factor, but it is not THE important factor. Just plain old "great pinot" is far more important to my enjoyment than being able to pick out what vineyard it came from. Keep up the great work guys!

Chris Peterson