Even the most casual reader of this column will have noticed that I’m a ‘terroirist’.
That is to say, my approach is that the taste of a wine reflects the interaction between grapes, soil, rock, climate, altitude, the slope of the vineyard in relation to sun and wind, etc. Bordeaux will always taste like Bordeaux and nowhere else can make wine that tastes the same. The role of man is to facilitate the expression of the terroir. Continue reading It’s not all about the terroir
One of my favourite wine stories is that of the woman who exclaimed to her friends “I don’t understand why the young all want to drink Chardonnay! Give me a nice dry Chablis any time!” Her friends were too polite to tell her that the grape in Chablis is Chardonnay.
I like it because it reminds me how easy it is to make a fool of yourself talking, or writing, about wine; and because it raises so succinctly the most interesting question you can ask about a wine – what makes it taste like this? How is it that wine made from the same grape, using similar methods, in Puligny-Montrachet, just 125 kilometres to the south of Chablis, tastes so different? Chablis is like steel compared to Montrachet’s butter.
Continue reading It’s all Chardonnay
The Whistler 