Terroir: Kees Van Leeuwen and Georges Seguin (2006) point out that a purely scientific study of terroir not only should include the study of soil, climate, grape variety, viticulture, winemaking and so on, but it must also account for the role of the human factors, such as local history, socio-economics, and other similar factors.

John Atkinson MW told me ‘my favourites book I read on wine is Anthony Hanson MW’s Burgundy. In it, he claims Burgundians have a heretical faith in terroir. Terroir is the loose interaction between grape variety, man and the physical environment, and it is the synergy between these elements that affords the status to individual terroirs. In Burgundy we are fortunate because there exists a hierarchy of terroirs – generic through to Grand Cru – so we can examine the differences and posit reasons as to why one might be better than another.’

‘There are three things that are important in wine, the grapes, the guys [and presumably the girls too] and the ground’ Warren Winiarski was quoted by Sarah Kemp as saying in ‘Up Front’, Decanter, November 2006, p.7.

Bibliography

Van Leeuwen, C., and G.Seguin, ‘The concept of terroir in viticulture’, Journal of Wine Research 17 (I): 1–10.

Dr Ian d’Agata, Native Wine Grape Terroirs (University of California Press, 2019), p.2-3.