Text João Barbosa | Translation Bruno Ferreira

A weird thing about the word terroir is that it’s probably only known by wine folks. I’ve been hearing faux pas after slip-up regarding the meaning of this French word that has no translation to other languages – an affirmation that lacks exhaustive research on my part.

Terroir connotes an almost magical dimension, anthropological and loveable even. As for me, it means ground, underground (or as far as the roots reach), ecosystem of proximity, natural environment (life and non-life) that the wind carries, climatic conditions, appropriate variety, agricultural knowledge and human intervention on the field. Beautiful but that can be ruined by “violent” handling in wineries.

No winegrower bad-mouths his own wine and there are “thousands” who claim their estates have an unique terroir. Changing a comma doesn’t necessarily change a text. The terroir minutiae comes from Burgundy, a place where micro regions exist. La Tâche, slightly over six hectares is an example. Ranging between 6 to 540 hectares, we can find all kinds of terroir concepts. So far so good, the complication arises when we talk about how to till the land.

First of all: a land portion where the vineyard is watered is part of the terroir? Those who water say it is, the ones who don’t claim it’s not, because it shows the vines are not comfortably settled – like they don’t belong there.

Secondly: vines treated with herbicides, fungicides and synthesis pesticides have the right to be a terroir? However natural, the addition of bordelaise syrup does not naturally fit the land, furthermore the copper is toxic.

Thirdly: trimming the weeds is consentaneous with nature? The plantation – ancestral and nowadays recognized -, between the lines, of azote’s fixating plants is consentaneous?

Fourthly: if the wine is an “intelligent agriculture” product, to deny/minimize the human intervention doesn’t diverge from the tillage’s essence?

Domaine de La Romanné-Conti, in Burgundy, adopted years ago the organic farming practice, then the biodynamics and nowadays the tilling is done with animal traction. Overdo or marketing?

Biodynamics is a radical organic farming model – I assume the adjective as a noun – which stands for minimal intervention, certified by a private and inflexible organization: Demeter. The movement was started by Rudolf Steiner, who introduced it in 1924. Honestly, I don’t know why the hell the Nazis had to pick on philosophy.

Bidyanmics gathers four ancestral contributions such as lunar cycles or the 12 signs zodiac astrology. To me it’s mysticism because they are in fact 13. But 12 is a magical number formed by other transcending numbers such as 3 and 4.

So that you have a notion of the radicalism: an estate with about 500 hectares was nearly discarded, just because a hole in the ground was mended with brick pieces. It was complicated to make them believe that bricks are made of clay. Biodynamics is a freedom of choice and no harm comes to the world.

To finish off I’ll tell you what I heard about a Burgundy producer. He says the variety only expresses itself during the first years. Upon reaching maturity, the plant expresses its terroir.

To water or not to water? Specific variety or not? Tillage in between the lines, or not to? Trimming the weeds or not to? To use animal traction or not to? To use synthesized products or not to? Each and every one has its own terroir concept and good tillage practice.

Whether skeptical or believer of some of the given facts, what I know is that great wines exist where organic farming is not practiced and neither is biodynamics, also watering is done.