Geology and Wine

Article

Wine critics love to talk about "gout de terroir," the taste of the soil.

But don't be fooled next time you hear one muse about the "weathered Devonian slate" or quartz soil "minerality" detectable in wine. They've stretched the meaning of terroir to the point of silliness.

Oh, this has to be my most favourite combination! Except maybe Geology and Fishing, but I never found much on that. So, we have found out that a bit of limestone in the soil doesn't make the wine chalky, but that soil drainage and porosity are probably more dominate. Now, if we found out that better wine is made near active faults, that would be something!