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Vd 1 2-pack superb bottles of Clos de Tart Grand Cru 1994Monopole the house Mommessin2 bottles of 75 cl.Le Clos de Tart is one of those wines. Its complexity wonder legendary lovers of great wines for 800 years … This [...]

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Many years ago, a Navy friend brought us a bottle of German wine as a hostess gift. Brian was elated because he’d found this wine in the U.S. I was surprised to discover that the gift was German red wine from a region I’d never heard of, the Ahr. No surprise, Brian told us – the Ahr is a very small wine region that produces mostly red wines, so it’s very hard to find Ahr wines outside of Germany.

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How many times have I told myself not to meddle in the world of terroir? Having (or starting) discussions about the traditionally French notion of how wines possess unmistakable signatures of their place of origin is not unlike having discussions about religion and sexual orientation: you need to take care who you have them with.

But here I am again meddling in the “somewhereness” of wines, to borrow writer Matt Kramer’s favorite shorthand for terroir.

The question of the day is whether terroir includes the “bad” flavors as well as good — and if it does, whether such flavors should be eliminated, or not.

We’ve already had part of this discussion here on Vinography, in the context of a previous discussion about the role of yeasts in terroir. While not a part of the main post, the conversation in the comments quickly turned to the role of the Brettanomyces yeast and whether it is a fundamental flaw, or whether it might be considered part of the regional terroir of the southern Rhone. While some might object to the suggestion that Brett and its typical horsey, barnyard aromas are a part of terroir, the question of whether it represents (or represented at one time) a regional style.

A recent piece of news bears on such questions. Scientists in South Africa, in collaboration with regional winemakers, have undertaken a series of investigations to identify the source of a series of aromas found in South African red wines. These aromas, which range from green wood to burnt rubber, are considered objectionable by some (myself included) while others consider them to merely be one of the typical regional qualities of wine produced in the country, and therefore an important signature of terroir.

Let’s assume for a moment that such flavors are indeed endemic to, and produced by, the region’s particular combination of geology, climate, and (sound) winemaking practices. If this is the case, but still many consider such flavors so objectionable that they will not buy (or worse, won’t rate highly) the region’s wines, should those flavors be eliminated?

To wit: if the scientists in South Africa manage to figure out what causes these aromas and then what to change in winemaking or winegrowing to eliminate them, should winemakers go ahead and effectively erase what many have come to consider a fingerprint of the region in an effort to make their wines taste better?

There are those who will stridently declare that just like the Brett that characterized Rhone wines of a certain era (much less commonly now), these aromas are fundamental flaws and need to be stamped out like nesting cockroaches. And there are those who will just as violently argue that stripping such qualities out of South African red wine will rob it of its individuality.

My interest in all this has to do with the implied balance between typicity on the one hand (how much a wine represents a certain place or type) and pleasure on the other hand. If winemakers make wine that is indelibly true to a place, but if very few people like it, does it matter how well the wine represents the place?

There’s no easy way to answer such a question, though I find it perhaps easier than most to step back from the romanticism of terroir and ask the question: what do these winemakers want to do with their wine? If they only aspire to sell it to a local market of people who don’t think it’s red wine unless it tastes like peeled willow bark, then there’s no need for a change. If they want to sell their reds on the global market, however, and that market demands wine without burnt rubber, then perhaps the terroir, or at least the regional style, needs a bit of an overhaul.

What do you think?

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The Rhone Report: About Rhone and Rhone-Style Wines and Winemakers is part of an ongoing series.

The most famous appellation in the southern Rhone Valley is Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Wine critic Robert Parker makes no bones about loving Chateauneuf, and calls it the most important appellation in the entire Rhone Valley. According to reputation, the French appellation contrôllée system and market prices, the pecking order of southern Rhone wines is something like this: Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Vacqueyras, Beaumes-de-Venise, Vinsobres, Cotes-du-Rhone Villages Cairanne (and Rasteau, Seguret and Sablet), Cotes-du-Rhone Villages from other named villages, Cotes-du-Rhone Villages (with no named village) and finally generic Cotes-du-Rhone. Check out our discussion about the various Rhone appellations.

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Tom Hyland recently sampled the latest releases of the great red wines of the Langhe area of the Piemonte region: the 2005s from Barbaresco and the great 2004s from Barolo.

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This month’s issue of WineBlueBook covers many Red Burgundy and Bordeaux wines that were scored last month by the wine critics. A total of 633 wines are profiled in the May 2008 issue.

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Two weekends ago I had the good fortune to be part of an epic blind tasting of around 50 bottles of all kinds of great wines from around the world. The occasion? My friend Morgan over at Bedrock Wine Co. was doing some last minute cramming before the practical portion of his Masters of Wine [...]

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Wine has been a popular drink to serve with meals for centuries but many people get confused as to which wine goes best with what type of meal. To make matters worse, there’s more to wine than just red and white, there are many …

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With such a surfeit of inexpensive but overripe, over-oaked Syrah that is indistinguishable from other red wines, this wine is terrifically refreshing. Yes, it’s on the ripe side too, but not too much, and yes, it has its share of oak, but it’s in balance and wraps around the fruit, and there’s a sense of [...]

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