What is exactly is terroir? It’s a word
that you might have heard thrown about out of the mouths of your oenophile
friends. Maybe a sommelier insisted that this Mosel Riesling had an excellent
sense of terroir, and that’s why you ended up drinking a wine that tasted like
eating peaches on a tire swing in the dead of summer, suspended above a
dazzlingly white flint quarry. Maybe you thought it was someone mispronouncing
the word terrier…Well, what is terrior, exactly?
Terroir, from the French
word terre, meaning "land" is the special characteristics that
the geography, geology and climate of a certain place bestow upon particular
thing made in that region, such as wine. It can be very loosely translated as
"a sense of place," which is embodied in the certain characteristic
qualities that things like soil and mineral composition have on something like a
wine. The concept of terroir is at the base of
the French wine system, appellation d'origine contrôlée(AOC) that has
been the model for appellation and wine laws across the globe. At its core is
the assumption that the land from which the grapes are grown imparts a unique
quality that is specific to that region. So what does that mean?
It means a wine
grown on chalky soils will taste different than a wine grown on slate. Limestone
will give a different set of characteristics than basalt. Though the reason for
this is not yet totally understood, it is widely accepted that when the vines
bring up nutrients from the soil they bring infinitesimal particles of the
minerals and soil up the root systems, into the fruit, and ultimately into your
glass. That’s why you can taste scorched earth in a good Coté Rotie. It literally means, “Roasted Slope”, and the
impression of the sun-drenched soil the grapes are grown in can be sensed in
your glass. Kimmeridgian
clay, an ancient
seabed that now forms the soil under some of the most celebrated vineyard sites
in the world, (Burgundy and Champagne, to name two), is a limestone heavy
with nutrients from the fossils of shellfish from eons ago. A great deal of the
complex characteristics of these wines is attributed to the soil they are grown
in.
You can’t really make a world-class wine
without something intriguing going on under the ground. Terroir- in so many
words, is that intrigue.
For some considerable time at Drinkfactory,
the word terroir has become synonymous with obsession.
“ Terroir, and how to give the
impression of terroir, of sensations normally only associated with wine, has
really occupying us at the lab for a while now.” said Tony Conigliaro. “I’m
interested in terroir- things like flint, clay, chalk, and different types of
soils, because very clearly we can identify when they are present- say in wine-
but we can’t necessarily actually
register them as tastes. There is no such thing as a definable flavour of
flint, but we have made the most incredible flint vodka using flint stones in
the Rotovapor. When you taste it there is an incredible sensation, almost like
licking a wet stone. The flavour is
there, but it’s actually not, and believe it or not the sensation is actually quite
pleasant. Working from that point we have started to experiment with other
things, like clay to see what effects they bring with them when treated in
various ways in the lab. Some of the effects are stunning.”
He then continued, “ Our goal in this is
to bring a lot of the complexity you find in really good wines and apply it to
cocktails. It already works well in our pink peppercorn and flint vodka drink (The
Sirocco, a drink that has been on the 69 menu for about a year), but we just want
to push the envelope and see what else we can do. We’ve been given soil samples
from Champagne houses and we’ve been playing around with that. Different types
of rocks, soil, you name it- we’ve tasted it. Imagine something that tastes
like wine, but has no wine in it. Wouldn’t that be crazy?”
He chuckles, “Well you can see why we
all are a little obsessed around here right now.”
Make sure to look back to the blog to
find out what the lab is doing next regarding terroir. For now pour yourself a
glass of Chablis and see if you can taste the limestone. Then get prepared to
do the same with a cocktail sometime soon.
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