 What is terroir and doesn't even matter in wine? We're going to put it to the test in this video. Welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horky. Hi, I'm Sharon Tan. Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking about that word, that term, terroir, a very controversial term in the wine world. What is it? It's a French term. There's actually no direct translation or equivalent, but dictionary.com defines terroir as this. The environmental conditions, especially soya and climate in which grapes are grown and that give a wine its unique flavor and aroma. What do you think about that definition? Fair enough, but it's kind of like a friendly buzzword right now, and people just kind of manipulate and play around with the word? Yeah, I think so too. And I think we talk about it, and I think culture actually should be included in terroir too, especially how people vindify wines throughout the years. Whatever. Okay, so I guess in this instance, we're going to specifically talk about sites, I guess, and maybe climatic conditions. The area of the world that really, where terroir gets really controversial is Burgundy, and especially with the grape Pinot Noir. What do you think that is? In a way, I think the whole fine wine trend was started in Burgundy and also Bordeaux, right? But back in the days, also there was a lot of retinomyces, and they kind of considered it as part of terroir. But okay, let's put all the history aside. I think when you look at Pinot Noir today, it's still a very terroir driven wine in a way that because it is a very sensitive grape, so it really responds to the surrounding and even the winemaker's way of handling the grape. But on top of that, if you just look at a grape itself, the skin is very thin, you know, it's very, basically it's very sensitive to sunlight exposition, you know, type of soil, that sort of thing. So I think it really reflects where it comes from absolutely well. And wherever, you know, when you take the Pinot Noir from different parts of the world, you can tell they are distinctly different. Yeah, I think too, you know, in Burgundy, monks have been defining areas, drawing out maps, delineating vineyards for centuries. In the wine world these days, it's trendy now to have single vineyard wines. And we have a set of three from Castelfetter, a winery in Alto Aragé, Italy, three Pinot Noirs, Pinonero in Italy, that are vinified the same way, same vintage, aged the same way, but they're from different terroirs. So we're going to see if that actually makes a difference when we taste through the wines, right? Let's go for it. All right, so these are these are the brand new Pinonero project. We actually love their top wine, the Burgum Novo, which I think is a fantastic wine, right? We've had several vintages of it. Before we taste this, I got to give a shout out to the Castelfetter Givert Strimminer we had last night. Wow, a phenomenal wine. What did you think of that? It was very, it has, I would say it has super high acidity, but it has amazing refreshing backbone in the wine and also a lot of, a lot of aromatic tones to it, but not overly Haiti. It was a 15% alcohol wine and I think that's quite a little bit of reshue sugar as well, but it's just everything is so well balanced. We had it with Asian spicy sauce, Asian spicy peanut, sesame sauce. So that's like complicated, you know, and the wine just cut through I like it wasn't overly floral. It wasn't, and it was very mineral and then high acidity for what's, give it Strimminer. Okay, let's get into these wines. Let's taste through them. Okay. Okay, so we tasted through everything here. We have a, there's three different locations here. We have the Glen Pinonero. This is from, this is goes the highest because the vineyards go up to 850 meters up the slopes. These are, and it faces south to southwest. The Buchots goes up to 470 meters. This is west facing, west northwest facing. And the Maison goes to 440 meters, but it's northwest facing. So these kind of have similar expositions. Well, this faces south. They're all 13 and oh no, this is 14% alcohol. These are 13 and a half. Alto Adige, you know, place in north Italy. You have the valley and then you have the mountains that go up a really, really high, great place for white wines and increasingly Pinot Noir. So what did you learn tasting through these three wines? What things that you saw? Actually for Glen and Banhof, is that how you pronounce? Buchots. Oh, sorry, Buchov. They both quite... Glen? Do you want to continue? Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So I think for Glen and Buchots, they taste relatively similar in style. Actually for me, Maison is the one that tastes quite distinctly different. It's a little more developed in terms of the fruit. I mean, when I look at the technical part, I don't really know why and how, but it's just a little bit different. I do think that Glen is more of a complete wine with more structure, longer end palette. But I might like Buchots better because it's got nice salinity and more linear. You know, they say that they're vinified equally. I don't know what the clone difference is because Pinot Noir has lots of clones. Also, Pinot Noir is a delicate, there's a real delicate grape. So the differences are subtle here. I mean, I think that's why people go crazy over Pinot Noir. For me, the Maison had a little bit more power, a little more tannins for me. I felt like the Buchots was probably the easiest to drink. And the Glen was a little more saline to me. I think those are the three differences that I saw. And you prefer the Buchots out of all of them. And I think the Buchot has more salinity power and more linear. Okay, what kind of quality? I mean, I think all three of these wines have to taste through them more in depth and detail. But I think they're all wines for me that would be over 90 point type wines, especially considering their 2018. So does terroir matter? I mean, this was a small sample size. What do you think of everything we tasted? I mean, if you're just looking at the textbook understanding of terroir, I would say it definitely matters because of the expat, the type of soy, how much water retention you'll be getting. It definitely affects the ripeness of the grape and how much sun it gets, especially for Pinot Noir, which is so sensitive, you know, you can burn all the aromatics or you can preserve a lot. And it really shows in the complexity in the wine. And Pinot Noir been so subtle in its power. I think it's even more interesting to look for all these nuances and subtlety in Pinot Noir wine. I forgot to add that these are all clay soils, all three are similar. So yeah, for me, too, in Pinot Noir, it's a finesse grape. It's subtle. I did see differences here to most consumers. I don't think those differences are minor, but for hardcore wine geeks, I think you're definitely going to find them. So check out some of these wines. I really enjoy the Pinot Noir from Alto Ades, especially Casta Fetter. So guys, if you like this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Exotic Wine Travel. We will see you at our next episode.