Terroir

If I recall correctly, one of my first posts on this blog made mention of the notion of terroir (pronounced teh-wah). I think at the time I believed it to be a French concept, not just a French word, a concept to add yet more mystique to their industry and a notion designed to eke a few more Euros out of the consumer of their wines.

Terroir is about a sense of place. A series of variables that all contribute to making a wine what it is. To paraphrase leading wine writer Huon Hooke from a book published in 1997 called Words on Wine, terroir is a series of factors that makes each wine unique and unable to be copied anywhere else in the world. For, to me, terroir is amongst other things about the climate, the soil structure, the micro-climate for an individual site on an individual block of an individual vineyard.

It is this that leads me to comment on this subject. In today's Australian Magazine (23rd/ 24th January 2010), James Halliday writes about the Shiraz Bledisloe, or the Hawkes Bay Syrah Challenge. This is a challenge in which Syrah from Hawkes Bay, NZs leading Syrah region with two thirds of its national planted total for that varietal, is pitted against Shiraz from Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley.

Now, I have some beef with this comp. For a start 85% of the red crush in Mornington Peninsula is of Pinot Noir and in the Yarra Valley, Shiraz is cited as the third principal red grape variety, after Pinot Noir Cabernet Sauvignon (taken from Halliday's Wine Atlas of Australia) . Further Halliday cites that the "choice of Australian regions was based on the similarity of the climate of the three regions". To link this to the title of this post, climate is just one contributory factor that makes a wine what it is. What little I know of Hawkes Bay - I have been and sampled some of the regions delights - one of the key features of the region are the alluvial plains with their famed 'gravels', something I believe neither the Yarra Valley nor Mornington Peninsula possess. This comp to me is a little like challenging the champ - my perception is that Shiraz is Australia's champ variety - to a bout in a discipline in which it is not. To me the Mornington Peninsula does Pinot Noir very well and the Yarra Valley is Chardonnay. Yes, they both represent other varietals well but an Aussie Shiraz contender should come from the Barossa, Canberra, Hunter Valley or McLaren Vale.

I am not disputing the quality of Hawkes Bay Syrah, or its wines in general for it could be said that it's 'Bordeaux' are even more supreme, but that, to pit them against Australia they should be pitched fairly against Australia's best. As to what Australia's best is I'll leave that to someone far more knowledgable than I.