Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1.12
A well-structured Brown
Earth near the Roche de Solutré in the
southern Mâconnais region, France.
The scale is 10 cm.
adopted systems of wine-region classification, such as the American Viticultural
Areas, the Australian Geographical Indications, and the Wine of Origin Scheme
in South Africa, which to varying degrees are built on the underlying principles of
terroir
, or “sense of place.”
The concept of a site's
terroir
being expressed through the distinctiveness of
wines produced from that site has been reinforced in recent times through the
organic/biodynamic viticulture movement (discussed in chapter 3). Especially
in biodynamic viticulture, the proponents argue that only by adopting “natural”
practices of soil management and minimum intervention in the vineyard can
the uniqueness of a site be expressed—“have the confidence to listen and allow
the site to speak to you” is the advice of Ted Lemon of Littorai Wines, Sonoma
County, California (Halliday, 2013). On the other hand, various scientific
studies have failed to identify specific causal relationships between one or more
soil or geological properties and a site's
terroir
, as argued at a recent Geological
Society of America conference in Portland, Oregon (Maltman, 2009). A pos-
sible exception to this generalization is the relationship between the rate of soil
water supply, the performance of dry-grown vines, and wine character that has
