There have been many mostly favorable posts throughout the wine blogoshpere on Randall Grahm’s talk given at the Terroir 06 conference (Wine Camp, Fermentation, Caveman). Few have noted John Buechsenstein’s talk given the day after that is partly in response to Grahm.

In large part the reason is that Grahm made his remarks public and UCD has seen fit to charge for access to Buechsenstein’s and the rest of the presenter’s slides and notes. For those willing to cough up $125.00 to download them the program can be found here (and if you would like to read just the text of Buechsenstein’s article, some of which I’ve quoted below, just send me an email).

Since I happen to think that most of the “spiritual” aspects of BioD are pretty silly, and since I tend to agree with the anonymous commenter at the end of Caveman’s post that Grahm is simply co-opting BioD for marketing purposes, Buechsenstein’s paper holds a special appeal. Heres the meat of what he had to say:

“Every wine comes from somewhere but not every somewhere can prompt idiosyncrasies of flavor to the degree that we can perceive flavors that evoke memories of a particular place. In many wines of the world (some very high percentage) the broad brush of generous climate, soil fertility, and water generosity can override distinctiveness and give us instead merely vinosity, satisfying though it may be. Other wines may enter the boring zone of similarity due to over-use of stylistic elements by the whiner (winemaker). But all wines need not have terroir. Sometimes I need to tell my overly-geeky students to “snap out of it, enjoy what’s in the glass and move on!â€?â€? or “get over it, people, it’s just wine, most of which will never go through some magical ‘transubstantiation’ and acquire flavor idiosyncrasies or eccentricities.â€?

There, now you’ve heard some of my ramblings and your umpteenth definition of terroir for the week. We’ve all heard much discussion about what must go into it, how 47 million year old rocks founded it, how more recent magma, streams, and tectonic up thrusts shaped it. You know the secret formula for visualizing it through “sentitive crystallization� and how to possibly augment its expression through “viticultural homeopathic� soil amendments. You need mature vines to support it, moderate deprivation of nourishment to prompt it, and a magical nose to sense it. Everybody knows it exists, but I always have the urge to be the kid who stands up and says that the king is naked. I want to know what it smells like and tastes like and I want someone to tell me. Don’t simply take me on a trip upon your magic terroir ship. I don’t believe it’s mystical heresy or magical sacrilege to ask the question:

Q: “Describe for me what you taste in this or that wine that makes it a vin de terroir.�
A: “Well, one can’t really, it just has a certain je ne sais quoi, don’t you think?
Q: “That’s right, je NE sais quoi, which is why I asked.�
A: “Well, as anyone can readily see, terroir may be more easily recognized than described. It would kind of destroy the magic and mystery of it all if I were to attempt to put it into words. Its flavors reflect where the wine is from but one must not try to step through the mirror.�

Since we fear creeping homogeneity of wine in the world with sameness replacing somewhereness, and since we fear that the dictatorial sway of those who champion wines of excess at the expense of wines of nuance puts vins de terroir on the endangered species list, we MUST study and communicate and educate the world about what constitutes real quality and what flavors constitute elements of terroir or we may be doomed to lose them. If we don’t have some kind of handle on what it is we are trying to coax out of the earth and shepherd through the winery into a bottle, then how do we really know if what we’re doing is appropriate?”

EDIT: Mary at the Dover Canyon blog also wrote a fun and interesting piece on sensitive crystallization over at Appellation America. Definitely worth checking out if you want another perspective on the BioD/Terroir debate.

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