Terroir: the Fascination and Identity of Wine in One Word
Wine is tasted and discussed. And from the glass emerges a French word. Beautiful and melodic. Perhaps, untranslatable: terroir. In English, it is rendered as soil. In Italian, it becomes, somewhat hastily, terreno or territorio. The Spanish speak of tierra, terruno, or comarca. Soil, arable land, or homeland, the terroir is something more than just a place.
Certainly, it indicates a land suited for cultivation. It is, however, the “little homeland” of a product. But within it lies the person who lives on that land, their personal history, the people who surround them. The identity of a territory. The time, memory, and passion required to leave the mark of an emotion. In a sip of wine, life and seasons. The vineyard and its deep roots, immersed in History.
Culture and crops, together: within a glass lies a whole world. The word appears as early as the 12th century (written in various ways: tieroer, terroier… essentially understood as a synonym for land) but soon falls into oblivion, only to resurface with Foucault in the mid-twentieth century. The concept of terroir encompasses all the factors that influence the wine that will enter your glass, factors active from the vineyard to the cellar. Namely: the soil on which the vine grows, the climate, the type of grape variety, the exposure and shape of the slope, but also the winemaker who made it, with their ideas and sensitivity as well as their technique. All the components that determine the characteristics of the wine, all together, identify a unique environment, and it is under this uniqueness that the magic of wine is defined.
Our winery extends over the hills that flank the town of Assisi to the east, land of a centuries-old wine and olive oil tradition. The calcareous soils of medium texture, poor in organic matter, rich in skeleton and mineral salts are excellent for selected crops. An ideal condition for the vine, which sinks its roots into a dry, permeable soil, capable of enriching the organoleptic profile of the grapes with particular saline components. Furthermore, we believe that only a wise and conscious agriculture, based on observation and a conscious and respectful domestication of the natural world, applied as a true act of love, can materialize in grapes of taste and in a wine that is an authentic expression and narration of our work and the territory.
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