November 2011. “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.”—1 Timothy 5:23 (King James Bible)

Leon: Friends, most of this article is from Ed and about wine.  I don’t know much about where wine comes from and how it is made.  Since moving into the good life at the St. James retirement home I have developed a routine of having a bit of wine with friends every afternoon before dinner.

So, all I know about wine is that it comes from Walmart, and there are two varieties: Riesling and Chardonnay.  Until Ed wrote this I had never heard of the term terroir.

Now Ed will explain it – sort of.

Ed: The French word terroir refers to a concept that holds that factors such as climate, geology, history, and topography influence wine quality.  I don’t remember having seen the word used until less than perhaps a year or so ago, but it is apparently related to the current interest in organically grown food, just as some French terms are “in” with TV chefs—things like “mise en place” or “sous vide.”

An article by Rebecca Coffey in Discover magazine’s September 2011 issue, entitled, “Wine Whisperers,” tells of a recent trip to the Napa valley in which she visited several wine makers, representing extremes in the ideology of what she has termed “terroirists.”  Some maintain that rainfall, irrigation, degree and direction of slope, the mineral and biological content of the soil, the history of the vineyard, the native yeasts and molds, and even the number and kind of earthworms impart character to wines.

Toward the other end of the terroirist ideology are vintners who use commercial wine yeasts and sulfur dioxide, where needed, to maintain some control over the various organisms in the fermenting wine, as well as some added nutrients if analyses of the wine indicate its need. I don’t have any idea how the concept of terroir applies to our environment, but the article awakened some memories of attempts at wine making over the years—mine and other people’s.

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