Podcasts · Wine Educate: Wine Lessons, Travel & WSET Study Prep
115. What Is Terroir? Breaking Down Wine's Most Untranslatable Word
· 9:38 · S1 E115
Episode 115. What Is Terroir? Breaking Down Wine's Most Untranslatable Word
Episode 115: What Is Terroir? Breaking Down Wine's Most Untranslatable Word
Host: Joanne Close Episode Length: 9:37 Release Date: June 11th
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Level 2 Mock Exam Bundle
If terroir and how climate, soil, and site come together to shape a wine's character is the kind of topic that makes you want extra practice before exam day, the Level 2 Mock Exam Bundle is built for exactly that. It includes practice questions modeled on the real WSET Level 2 exam format, helping you test your understanding of these foundational concepts before you sit the real thing.
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Episode Description
Joanne is recording this episode from a tiny stone cottage at the top of a mountain in the south of France, and the setting could not be more fitting. This week she tackles terroir, a word every wine student encounters early on but one that resists a single tidy definition. Rather than offering a textbook answer, Joanne breaks the concept down into its parts and walks through how each one shows up in a glass of wine.
She covers the building blocks of terroir, including climate, soil composition, topography, aspect, and the human decisions that go into farming a vineyard. She also touches on how France's appellation system is really a reflection of terroir, and how newer wine regions like the United States are still discovering and defining their own.
Using her current surroundings in the Languedoc as a live example, Joanne talks through the wind, the limestone soil, the wild herbs of the garrigue, and how all of it ends up reflected in the wines made from this specific patch of land. It is a grounded, personal take on a concept that can otherwise feel abstract.
What You'll Learn in This Episode What Terroir Actually Means
• Why there is no direct English translation for the French word terroir • How terroir refers to the combination of factors that create a wine's unique sense of place • Why terroir is not one single thing, but many factors working together
The Components of Terroir
• Climate, including rainfall, sunshine, and wind • Soil composition, drainage, and color, including how dark soils like the galets of Châteauneuf-du-Pape retain and reflect heat • Topography and aspect, including elevation and proximity to rivers or the sea • Vine training methods and vine density • Grape variety selection and vineyard decisions
Terroir and the Appellation System
• How France's appellation system reflects recognized terroir over centuries • How appellations get more specific moving from a broad region down to individual sites, using Burgundy, the Côte d'Or, Pommard, and Volnay as an example • How newer wine regions are still in the process of identifying their best sites
Terroir Beyond Wine
• How the concept of terroir also applies to cheese, tea, honey, and single malt scotch • New research into soil microbiomes and how they may influence the resulting style of wine
Terroir in Practice: La Clape and the Languedoc
• How wind, including the mistral and tramontane, shapes the vineyards of this region • How calcium-rich limestone soil and water reflect in the minerality of local wines • How the garrigue, with its wild lavender, rosemary, and herbs, contributes to the aromatic character of wines from this area
Episode Highlights and Quotes
"Terroir is poetry, and it is a combination of all the parts of a unique part in the world and the wine that it makes."
"One big important factor about terroir is that it cannot be replicated. You could try to take the same grape in the same climate, planting it on the same soil, aspect, elevation, all those things, and you may get something similar, but you're not going to get a replication of this specific wine."
"If you were doing your WSET studies, you could be nodding your head right…
Links in the notes 4
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