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• Terroir is the next big thing in California wine country

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  Elizabeth Riadi    Group moderator

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  Terroir is the next big thing in California wine country

  The Taste of the Earth
  Terroir is the next big thing in California wine country
  The real dirt: A worker at the Bond vineyard
  By Jerry Adler and Tara Weingarten
  
  NewsweekFeb. 28 issue - Along the lanes of Burgundy, A. J. Liebling once wrote, the very road signs read like wine labels. The place names speak of the flinty or chalky earth, of soils that have for centuries sacrificed themselves to yield up tantalizing notes of apple or leather. But most Americans, having mastered a simple five- or six-part vocabulary of varietals (Cabernet, Chardonnay ...), never learned to tell a Chassagne Montrachet from a Puligny-Montrachet. California wines have mostly been defined by the type of grape and the wine maker's style, not the vineyard or the year. That suits the typical wine drinker seeking consistent enjoyment rather than an intellectual challenge, says Linda F. Bisson, an oenologist at the University of California, Davis. The soil and weather, being Californian, were assumed to be perfect.
  
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  But precisely because their products are so routinely excellent, California wine makers have begun to look for ways to distinguish themselves. "A few years ago, customers never asked about specific vineyards," says Dennis Cakebread, proprietor of Napa's Cakebread Cellars. "Now they seek them out." Even Robert Mondavi's inexpensive Woodbridge label, whose typical offerings are produced from grapes trucked in from all over California, has introduced a Select Vineyard series of wines (suggested retail: $10.99) grown exclusively in Lodi, a region near Sacramento. In the $175 bracket, the ultracult wine maker H. William Harlan has just released the third vintage of his single-vineyard Bond wines, for connoisseurs desiring to "taste the different expressions of the land." Now selling for about $300,000 an acre, the fields of Napa have finally earned the honorific long bestowed on their counterparts in France: they are terroir.
  
  • 10 Mar 2005, 4:00 pm
  Elizabeth Riadi wrote: > The Taste of the Earth > Terroir is the next big thing in California wine country > The real dirt: A worker at the Bond vineyard > By Jerry Adler and Tara Weingarten > > NewsweekFeb. 28 issue - Along the lanes of Burgundy, A. J. Liebling > once wrote, the very road signs read like wine labels. The place > names speak of the flinty or chalky earth, of soils that have for > centuries sacrificed themselves to yield up tantalizing notes of > apple or leather. But most Americans, having mastered a simple five- > or six-part vocabulary of varietals (Cabernet, Chardonnay ...), never > learned to tell a Chassagne Montrachet from a Puligny-Montrachet. > California wines have mostly been defined by the type of grape and > the wine maker's style, not the vineyard or the year. That suits the > typical wine drinker seeking consistent enjoyment rather than an > intellectual challenge, says Linda F. Bisson, an oenologist at the > University of California, Davis. The soil and weather, being > Californian, were assumed to be perfect. > > advertisement > > But precisely because their products are so routinely excellent, > California wine makers have begun to look for ways to distinguish > themselves. "A few years ago, customers never asked about specific > vineyards," says Dennis Cakebread, proprietor of Napa's Cakebread > Cellars. "Now they seek them out." Even Robert Mondavi's inexpensive > Woodbridge label, whose typical offerings are produced from grapes > trucked in from all over California, has introduced a Select Vineyard > series of wines (suggested retail: $10.99) grown exclusively in Lodi, > a region near Sacramento. In the $175 bracket, the ultracult wine > maker H. William Harlan has just released the third vintage of his > single-vineyard Bond wines, for connoisseurs desiring to "taste the > different expressions of the land." Now selling for about $300,000 an > acre, the fields of Napa have finally earned the honorific long > bestowed on their counterparts in France: they are terroir.