At lunch at Le Verre Volé in Paris, I was handed a bottle of natural wine with the names of everyone who had picked the grapes printed on the back label. I’ve never forgotten it, because it changed how I think about terroir.
We usually describe terroir as soil, climate and landscape, the things that make a wine taste of where it comes from. That label was a reminder that people belong to a place too, and that their work ends up in the glass alongside the weather and the rocks. I hoped it would catch on, and sadly it never did.
Terroir is one of those French words the wine world brings out when it wants to sound serious, and I’ve used it more times than I’d care to count. To some it’s a philosophy, a way of connecting with the earth and finding our place in the world. To others it’s something closer to regionalism, a fierce loyalty to one patch of land above all others.
That second view came to me secondhand. Some years ago an American blogger touring Beaujolais tweeted that he was surprised more natural winemakers weren’t fervent nationalists, given the way they talk about the land. I collect throwaway remarks about wine the way other people collect crisp packets, and this one stuck, partly because of the febrile politics at the time. Were natural winemakers less Gaia-like than I liked to believe? Could all this talk about the land turn rancid, into terroir as nation and terroir as nostalgia? Perhaps terroir is where the right and the left meet in wine.
It isn’t a far-fetched worry. All wine is patriotic on some level, and the UK has simply been a net importer for centuries. Ask a Pays d’Oc producer about cheap Spanish wine coming across the border, or don’t, if you’d like to have a pleasant meal. A love of place can turn territorial very quickly.
As a perfume fanatic, I can’t help seeing the same idea in fragrance. Jasmine from Grasse and sandalwood from Mysore carry their origins the way a wine carries its vineyard, and perfumers working with natural materials talk about letting a scent reflect where it comes from, much as natural winemakers do. Those materials come with the same mixture of pride and possessiveness too, a celebration of a region’s culture and history that can tip over into guarding it.
When I sold natural wine, a customer told me these winemakers sounded lazy, letting nature do the work while they did nothing all day. To me it sounded idyllic, and it shows in the wine, which can have a relaxed generosity of fruit. I’d call what they do a discipline of listening.
So is terroir philosophy or regionalism? Having thought about it for longer than is probably healthy, I think it’s both, for better or worse. It connects us with the earth, with the culture and history of a region, and, as that label in Paris taught me, with the people who do the work. At its best it’s the art of listening: if we step back and pay attention, nature will express what it needs and rebalance itself, whether that turns out in our favour or not. The names on the back label are a reminder that listening to a place means listening to its people too. The next time you open a bottle, perhaps turn it around before you pour. See who is there.
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