On Sat, 17 May 2008 03:02:34 -0700 (PDT), Tom Reeves
wrote:

DP!: Is the French concept of terroir (the notion that wine is an
expression of its soil and climate) something that you endorse?

JS: Yes! It is what makes French wines

I have absolutely no doubt about this at all. Not that many here, I
suspect, will doubt that a wine can reflect the land upon which it's
grown.

Two anecdotes
1 Tasting Nuits St George wines at Domaine Henri Gouges. They use the
same clones of Pinot Noir throughout their domaine (except where the
white sport is grown). They vinify their wines in the same way. Yet if
you taste Nuits St Georges 1st cru Les St Georges against the two
other 1st crus Les Porrets and Les Pruliers, all three are noticeably
different, and yet they are all three on the same hillside, aligned in
the same direction. The ONLY difference between the three plots is the
soil, and that because of the amount of water run off from the cliffs
above.

Tasting barrel samples of the wines destined to become Moulin des
Dames white at Ch Tour des Gendre. The estate grows the Sauvignon
Blanc grape (same clone) on three different parcels, they all have
different types of limestone. The resulting wines are completely
different, with one (grown over very hard limestone, into which the
roots have difficulty penetrating) really quite similar to some New
Zealand SBs. So here are two examples of the same clones of the same
vines vinified the same way, showing differences that can only be due
to the parcel on which the vines are grown.

I'm not drawing inferences about desirability or otherwise, but merely
confirming that the concept of terroir has validity.

As Mike Tommasi says, however, it's difficult to see how the concepto
f Terroir can have meaning if the roots don't penetrate deep enough
into the soil to interract with it.

--
All the best
Fatty from Forges