David M. Bueker wrote:Meg Maker’s Terroir Review site has a new feature “Terroir Letters”, with guest authors. First one is Randall Graham, who worships at Tom Hill’s “false altar.” You can guess who I find more convincing.
http://terroirreview.com/2018/06/03/my- ... o-terroir/
Well....Randall
Grahm has been babbling on about vins de terroir for quite a few yrs.
He was using the dreaded T-word when I started following him from the very start,
back before it was fashionable.
In this article, he bemoans the fact that he's been forced to make vin de cepage and unable
to make a true vin de terroir. I'll call him on this one, however. For a good many yrs, Randall has been making
an X-Block Syrah from BienNacido. It is a world-class Syrah I would say. I find a lot of the same things in his X-Block
Syrah that I find in BobLindquist's X-Block Syrah. If that's not an expression of terroir, I don't know what is. Granted, it
doesn't show the terroir of LaLandonne or LaMouline (another world-class Syrah), and that may be Randall's reason
for dismissing it as a wine that shows terroir.
Randall praises his Popelouchum vnyd as being an ideal site to display a vins de terroir that he desires to make.
"responsible for the heterogeneity of the diverse soil types that one finds on the property."
My understanding that the world's classic vins de terroirs (Burgundy, Barolo, Cote-Rotie, ToKalon, Chablis, etc)
all come from areas that have fairly homogeneous soils, with minor variations. Now we find from Randall that this
is not necessarily the case.
Clearly, Randall denigrates those folks that worship at the altar of varietal typicity. Yet the great vins de terroirs
are usually made from predominately a single variety.
"whilst minimizing the extraneous noise of other elements, including (gasp) that of varietal character".
So...Barolo that smells like Nebbiolo or RedBurg that smells of PinotNoir is now thought to be "extraneous noise" and
is not the greatest expression of those terroirs??
It may be counter-intuitive (Randall's favorite word), but he
asserts that Popelouchum will make the best vin de terroir by using a large selection of varieties that are co-fermented.
That's a puzzling assertion to me. Generally, when you mix a bunch of color from the entire color spectrum, you get
the color grey. I find a painting that is predominately red (or blue or green) is far more interesting than one that is
predominately grey.
He further goes on to say that the "proper" farming, with using various manipulations in the vnyd, such as organic &
biodynamic, restricted yields, non-tillage, pruning, thining, etc are necessary to "boost the terroir signal w/o creating an undue amount of noise". That's a proposition I've seen oft stated (primarily by those farming biodynamic), but not seen a shred
of evidence that that's the case. I think there are plenty of vnyds that are farmed conventionally that display terroir.
When DRC went from conventional farming to biodynamic farming, was there a dramatic increase in the terroir of their
respective vnyds (I'm asking a question...I don't deign to drink those wines).
Anyway...the article came across to me as another rambling/unfocused piece by Randall, throwing out all the right /au courant
buzz words. It leaves me scratching my head in puzzlement.
But then Randall is of a much higher intellect than I and probably I'm not bright enough to fully grasp
what he's trying to say. I have the same problem trying to understand Feynman's quantuum electrodynamics articles as well.
Probably I should restrict my reading to DrSeuss.
Tom
