Ah Terroir, such a magical word and maybe that’s all it is.

Terroir originates from the French and is commonly used to describe how the land, soil, topography (shape of the land), etc have an impact on the resulting wine.

Here is Wikipedia’s definition:

Terroir (French: from terre, “land”) is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop’s phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop’s specific growth habitat. Collectively, these contextual characteristics are said to have a character; terroir also refers to this character.

Someone asked me recently about the word and whether it’s all marketing nonsense in the US or if Terroir truly is unique to each wine?

Well, I doubt I have the definitive answer, but after visiting the wine regions in Australia, Chianti and Slovenia, I can’t recall Terroir mentioned very often.

As with all things, it’s nice to have a word to describe them. Maybe this is why the US has picked up on the word Terroir so well.

It’s a nice way for a winery to describe their unique growing situation in one succinct word.

Personally, I love the word. It has a nice ring to it and it’s unique to wine. I also love the idea that every piece of land has its own story to offer and that, that story can be told through the terroir of the land.

There is of course a marketing spin as well. It goes hand in hand. I believe marketing is the main source of the word in the US, but I wonder if maybe it was not done on purpose.

Sadly I have not visited any California wine regions yet (it’s up there on the list!) so it’s hard to comment.

However, I speculate that maybe it’s the winemakers who were searching for a word to easily describe to customers the soil, temperature, precipitation, etc and thus Terroir took its hold in the US.

From there, marketing teams everywhere picked up on the word and it took flight. I also expect it is overused during tastings to help build the magic around a bottle of wine.

One of the best things about wine is its uniqueness.

We are always on the lookout for a new unique bottle that blows our minds. Thus, using the word Terroir to describe how unique your growing situation is, can help solidify a customer’s impression of uniqueness for the wine.

Again, in Italy, Slovenia, and Australia the term was seldom used, if at all.

So, maybe it is all marketing….

What do you think? Is the word new to you or do you think it’s overused?