Taste the Landscape

Why does a wine taste of where it comes from?

Not, as far as the evidence goes, because minerals from the rock turn up as flavours in your glass. The landscape works further back: on water, roots and warmth, and through them on the vine. This page is a place to explore that, one soil at a time.

Rows of vines in late summer with a wide river valley and hills beyond
From earth to glass
  1. RockWhat lies underneath, and how it weathers.
  2. Water & rootsHow much water the soil holds, and how deep roots must go.
  3. VineHow vigorously it grows, and how much fruit it carries.
  4. GrapeSugar, acidity, skins, ripeness.
  5. CellarEvery decision the winemaker takes.
  6. YouWhat you smell and taste, and what you expect to.
An honest word about soil

You don't taste the rock. You taste a wine whose story began with the landscape.

Tasters reach for words like chalk, flint and wet stone, and it's easy to assume the rock itself is speaking. The science is more interesting than that. Soil decides how much water a vine gets, how warm its roots stay and how hard it has to work. Climate, slope, the grape and the grower all play their part too.

So the soils below aren't flavour charts. Think of them as the first link in a long chain.

The soil explorer

Five ways of looking at vineyard ground

These aren't five separate soil types. Some are rocks, some are what rocks break down into, and most vineyards mix several. Each behaves differently from site to site, so treat what follows as tendencies, not rules.

Volcanic

Some soils remember oceans. Volcanic soils remember fire.

What the soil does
What it can influence
What it doesn't do
Where to see it
Open this
If this soil were music:
Compare

Put two soils side by side

The differences are easier to see in pairs. Choose any two.

Try this at home · an exploration

Two glasses, two limestones

Same grape, same region, both grown on Jurassic limestone, but not the same limestone. Pour them side by side and notice texture, weight and how long each one lasts. This isn't a test that proves soil causes a flavour. It's a way of noticing differences and asking where they might come from.

ChablisChardonnay · Kimmeridgian limestone and marl · cool, northern BurgundyTry: an unoaked Premier Cru
and
Puligny-MontrachetChardonnay · Bathonian limestone · the Côte de BeauneTry: a village Puligny

Some of the difference is the soil. Some is the climate, the slope and the winemaker's oak. Tasting them together is how you start to tell which is which.