Really enjoying this rather contrarian view article - worthy of discussion. It’s contrarian, in general, but downright scandalous if referring to Burgundy!
We wine lovers are drunk on terroir. Almost everything that could be said about wine has been subsumed into endless, tedious discussions of soil, rocks, and a bunch of other junk whose importance in the finished product is neither scientifically verifiable nor interesting. Entire generations of wine drinkers are now busy obsessing over subtle soil differences in Champagne, with nary a mention of the fact that almost all Champagne is a blend of dozens of different wines from different vintages that then goes through a highly impactful secondary aging process. No shade to Champagne, but if someone invented the Champagne method in 2021, absolutely no one would think it could showcase terroir.
You mean vineyards aren’t like old growth forests? Don’t the grapes ferment themselves and then jump into the bottle?? Is this guy correct or just making up stuff??
I guess the philosophical question in my mind is terroir limited to only single vineyards / estate or a signature of perhaps a larger region. Many times Italian wines to me typically taste very Italian (the reds at least) but is that not a representation of Italian terroir, winemaking, and many other factors? I think even if it’s a blend wines can exhibit characteristics of origin. Perhaps this becomes less true when you think of the Judgement of Paris and they couldn’t really figure out which was a French or a Californian wine.
I skimmed the article because the fact it’s titled a rant and is very sensationalized POV I think it was written with maybe a small portion of truth, but just blown out of portion.
I read that yesterday too, and thought it was a good viewpoint.
For those who don’t need a single vineyard wine for whatever psychic reasons, there is so much more value down at the blended level, even if it might be the ‘leftovers’ from all the primo lots.
Rioja has pretty much always been this way, and the vineyard designate effort is new there, and not always succeeding in getting traction.
Interesting article and agreed that’s a topical discussion. Take Bierzo in Spain for instance…they are going to a classification system like Burgundy. Great for the producers if that brings in more wine buyers and helps them to decide which vineyard in a specific village they like more than another (although I’m skeptical there will be enough consumer interest in that level of detail in Bierzo). However, also worried this will just allow producers to raise prices across the board for an undervalued region in my mind.
Coincidentally, I was thinking about this yesterday when doing some Burgundy shopping online (and being somewhat annoyed by the huge price variations based on minor terroir distinctions). I think we put too much value in singular, micro expressions of terroir and too little value in the benefits of blending to create better wines, at least in most of the major wine regions. I appreciate producers like Bartolo Mascarello for boldly sticking to their guns on this. If we strip away all of the dramatic marketing, imagery, and other nonsense that we are fed daily in the wine world, it seems like a fairly logical conclusion that in most cases a better wine would come from blending strengths and weaknesses of the various vineyard holdings a producer owns or purchases from. That isn’t to say that there aren’t numerous instances where single vineyards possess singular qualities and should be celebrated as such (Romanee Conti, Monvigliero, To-Kalon, etc.), but the reality is that in most cases we overpay for wines based on this delineation. Champagne makes this point pretty strongly.
A caveat to this is that because so many producers now prioritize (yields, quality barrels, ageing, etc) and invest more in their SVDs, they actually are better than their blended counterparts. It would require a widespread shift to change this, but I’d honestly welcome it.
in another thread, the majority were skeptical about algorithms and such affecting journalism and their own online behavior, yet here we are with pure clickbait meant to feed the algos, being shared on a popular wine board, etc.
the merits and content of the article are - and always have been - irrelevant. the only goal is to click, share, complain, extol, enrage, etc.
Well, hmm. I read the article. Other than the breathless hyperbole there’s not much new here. My POV is that emphasis on single vineyard origins and terroir are merely reflections of a mature market that is willing to pay more for perceived distinction. The premium buying market (whether it’s Berserkers, collectors, or impressers) is deeply committed to paying more for better wine (whether your premium is $18 or $1800).
“Better” is a wildly subjective agglomeration of marketing, branding, labels, expert reviews, experience, tasting, preferences, brand loyalty, CT scores, etc. etc. Since the wine makers cannot control most of these levers, they do what they can to both make the best wine possible at the price points they play in, AND participate in/reflect how the marketplace understands value. The market wants single vineyards and will pay more for it. For wine makers to give the market what it wants - and make more money - is not cynical or evil or a scam. For the small wine makers that we love that extra money is often the difference between insolvency and a decent living. If big players (or anyone) use this to manipulate buyers and trick people into ‘over paying’ for wine lacking in quality, we Berserkers will sure as heck figure that out.
In a lot of cases, a winemaker can (and does) blend a better wine than what can produced in a single vineyard. I’ve seen this multiple times here in Oregon. I think the difference is the intellectual exercise of understanding what one vineyard can produce over other vineyards and over time versus making the best possible wine. In Burgundy, the intellectual aspects far outweigh the potential “best wine” aspects, if there are differences. In other places as well, some vineyards get recognized because, over time, they have produced the best wine. Some of the sites on the Mosel are a good example of this. And the idea that Burgundy invented the idea of place post-WWII as a marketing concept is laughable.
I don’t think that the big champagne houses are using terroir to sell their big blends, but there are vintage champagnes that can explore terroir differences. As far as winemakers using single vineyard designations to sell wines, that only works while people view that there is a difference that deserves the extra money. Also, I’d love to hear which winemakers are calling smoke taint terroir, because I haven’t heard of them yet.
It strikes me as sort of a BS article written by an author who’s needing of attention. Don’t think it has anything of substance.
Using the association of vnyd-designate wines to attack the revered notion of Terroir strikes me as a bit silly. To accuse wineries of
using vnyd-designates to jack up the price is sorta lame.
There is little doubt that single-vnyd wines are something that is unique. That’s why winemakers do it, they think it can make a unique wine.
But then associating it with terroir seems a bit of a stretch. Could Ridge make a better Zin by blending Pagani/LyttonSprings/Geyserville/Ponzo all together.
I have my doubts. When you taste LS/Geyserville/Pagani side-by-side are they distinctive? Absolutely. But I don’t particularly associate w/ terroir. It’s just
the uniqueness of the vnyd coming thru.
Can I identify a unique terroir in Pagani Zin across a bunch of different producers? Nothing I can put my finger on or that I can taste blind & say that’s “Pagani”.
Certainly there’s a small degree of commonality in Pagani from different producers. Sometimes. But given a Zin blind, there’s nothing that shouts out to me Pagani.
Anyway…a pretty lame article by a writer desperate for some attention.
Tom
I have found when I talk to wine makers here in NZ they are very very interested in how different vineyards produce wines of different expression and character. They may or may not use the terroir term, but the differences can be clearly tasted in the wines (same grape, pretty much same picking time, same elevage etc etc)
The article assumes that blending in champagne was a winemaking choice, whereas it’s really a legacy of the negociant domination of the business; making single plot wines makes no sense if you buy fruit in large quantities. Unsurprisingly, growers do a lot with single vineyard champagnes, as do some of the big houses now (Clos de Mesnil, Clos de Goisses).
To be fair, the author is correct to a small degree (I don’t agree with most of what he says). And what he says gives rise to a related argument;
Generally speaking, blending typically does make a consistently better wine overall. That’s simply as a winemaker can pick and chose the best lots from various areas to combine. Whereas a true S.V. wine is only from that one small-ish area. Which means the winemaker is at the beholding of what he has from that one small area each year. Mother nature is not kind every single year a vineyard is being used to make a S.V. wine.
A S.V. can have it’s own various terriors within itself. So is it really a S.V. wine? In the strictest sense, I’d argue no it is not. I’ll use the Douro Valley region as a good example. Many, if not most, vineyards have a wide range of altitudes, sun exposure (one can have both east/west/north and south facing slopes), and even different levels of precipitation. This means even the same varietals grown on different parts of the vineyard can be very different from each other.
Brodie,
As far a Burgundy is concerned, I’m in the Matt Kramer camp - the reason to drink burgundy is to understand the terroir. It’s not about drinking the best wine a winemaker can make/blend, it’s an intellectual pursuit of what kind of wine someone can make from a specific plot of land, and are these attributes identifiable over time. In many cases, especially with the better examples, educated tasters can tell the differences. Even on this Board, we see folks using similar descriptors for different vintages of wines from the same vineyard. Winemakers could endeavor to make a better wine by blending, but that isn’t the reason to drink Burgundy. For example, d’Angerville could likely make a better Premier Cru Volnay by blending vineyards together (and rules allow it), but they don’t because what consumers (and likely the winemaker too) really want is to understand the differences between Champans, Clos des Ducs, and so forth.
Certainly Burgundy has had 500+ years to figure out the places where the best wine is made, and those places are pretty universally recognized (though the current system, for a variety of reasons, doesn’t recognize the quality of some vineyards in Pommard and Meursault). At the same time, Burgundy is about celebrating the differences, not about blending those differences away. To me, that is the intellectual aspect that far outweighs the “best wine” aspect.
Blending makes a more consistent wine overall (thus big house style for champagnes), but not necessarily better. A single vineyard producer can also choose to make a smaller amount of wine to maintain quality. It’s also mostly a champagne related comment; Bartolo wouldn’t buy grapes to maintain consistency.
I also think the second point is a red herring - in a very bad year you’ll often see single vineyard wines not made/declassified and blended into other cuvees. Like 2014 Barolo in Castiglione Falletto or various Burgundy declassifications due to hail/frost or other bad weather.
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