Can’t Beat the Terroir Out With a Stick

I recently read an article by one of my favorite wine writers, Dan Berger, on Randall Grahm, one of my favorite winemakers (and prolific writer in his own right).  In the article, Grahm states that there are “two kinds of wines in this world, and one of them is based on the Old World paradigm, which means that the wine amplify the terroir,” so that they show characteristics that display some of the soil-derived elements of the vineyard.  “The New World paradigm is to attain the highest (Robert) Parker score you can.  Period.  End of story.”

That pretty much sums it up — and for Randall — that is amazingly succinct (I told you he was prolific).  And I’ll take it a step further to state that in many cases, certain members of the press will even criticize and give a lower score to a wine that truly reflects the typicity of the vineyard — a wine that really tastes like ‘the place.’ 

Admittedly, there are wines that I like that have been recommended by the ‘big two’ (Robert Parker & James Laube of the Wine Spectator).  But there are many that I could swear we must have been tasting different wines.  I don’t know why that is — maybe it is how the wines have been stored or transported — maybe it is simply the situation in which the wines were tasted.  I tend to taste wines individually — that is, alone and on their own merit, and often with food & friends.  The reality of many wine writers is that, because of the sheer volume of wines to be tasted and scored, they taste several, often tens & hundreds, of the same varietal from multiple producers at the same time.  Human nature will gravitate to comparing the wines against each other, rather than tasting the individuality of each wine and the terroir from which it was born.

Regardless, I would hope that any winemaker would honor the grapes and allow them to express themselves in the wine rather than manipulating the wine to vinify out the terroir.  Our winemaker Mike Brunson put it pretty clearly when he said “You can’t beat the terroir out this place with a stick.”  Nor, I might add, would we want to. 

Ultimately, at Michel-Schlumberger, we want our wines to be distinctive & to reflect the unique specific site from which the grapes come.  Admittedly, some may not like that style, but like art, our art is our art — it is not someone else’s.  Naturally, we are not going to be so far off the deep end that we don’t listen to our customers, but with 2,500 or so loyal club members and thousands of visitors & buyers annually, clearly we must be on to something. 

I’ll open this up for discussion — should a winery make wines for scores?  To reflect terroir?  For something else?  With tens of thousands of wines available to consumers in the U.S. today — what would you do if you were a winery?