How to Impress a Wine Snob

Ever Heard of Terroir?

Want to sound super fancy at your next wine tasting? 

Here’s a simple line to impress the wine snob in your life - Next time you’re enjoying a glass of wine, say, “Ahh, you can really taste the terroir in this.”

Pronounced “tehr - waar”, this French word essentially translates to “sense of place”. 

It encompasses the climate, as well as the soil type, the terrain, the farming methods, and the region that a wine is from. 

The idea is that a certain style of wine, say a Syrah for example, coming from one particular region will taste different than a Syrah from a different region, even if most of the winemaking was kept the same. This difference would be due to the terroir: the climate, soil type, terrain, etc.

Interestingly enough, this concept isn’t necessarily unique to wine!

Chocolate has terroir, as does cheese. I’m a Wisconsin born girl, and everyone in Wisconsin knows that nothing beats our cheese. If you studied cheese enough, you’d likely be able to pick out exactly where certain cheeses are from, because all cheeses from a certain area will have something similar about them.

It’s the same idea with wine!

Oranges on the other hand, are an example of a product that does not have terroir. A Florida orange will taste basically the same as an orange grown in Australia.

What do you think of this idea of terroir?

Want to learn more wine tasting tips? Join me at my next Virtual Tasting Party! Each month is a new theme and you’ll learn plenty of tasting tips and tricks along the way. Cheers!