If you’ve walked through a vineyard at harvest time you may have sensed the essence of the place. The rich sweet smell of the grapes, warm sunlight, and the color of the plants and earth merge to create a transcendent moment. This is Terroir.
When you talk to the French about wine they often use the word Terroir as an ingredient or essence of wine. It is a word derived from the French word terre which means land. But terroir means much more. If you ask a farmer who grows coffee or tea or grapes for wine, they will say that terroir is untranslatable. In its simplest form it is the spirit or soul of place, often a small area. It is a complex mixture of attributes.
Terroir embraces the physical geography: the composition of soil, the location in relation to the sun, hillside or flat land. Terroir includes the history of the land, not just the last growing season or last decade but centuries when the land was tilled or lay fallow. It implies that the land has a memory and that it remembers the aspirations, joys and sorrows of those who have worked the soil.
In a good wine, you can see, smell, and taste the essence of the land: the terroir.
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