The Terroir Conference

I just wish they'd have come up with a better name for this thing. I mean, if the Catholic Church can have the Diet of Worms, can't we have something more interesting on Terroir? Ah well. Terroir is a controversial enough word and concept, someone could put together a whole conference just to define it. Hey, wait a minute....

This coming March, the venerable U.C. Davis will be hosting something of a first: a conference that brings together geologists and vintners to talk about Terroir. This might have gone unremarked, except for the increasing discussions about it here on Vinography, and the fact, staggeringly, that this is the first time that this has really happened.

I'm a bit of a geology geek myself, so I'm pretty excited about the concept, at least. It will be interesting to see what the proceedings are like.

Check out the conference website.

Posted by: Alder on August 16, 2005 6:41 PM: Tweet; Share this post elsewhere: Digg it! - Add to del.icio.us - Add to Stumbleupon - Add to Reddit; Filed under: Wine Activities

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Comments (7)

Terry Hughes wrote:

08.16.05 at 6:54 PM

Staggering, all right...but this is the first time it's happened in Calfornia or the USA but not, assuredly, in France or Italy??

Alder wrote:

08.16.05 at 7:12 PM

I wouldn't know. I donâ€™t get press releases in French or Italian.

Jack wrote:

08.16.05 at 10:25 PM

Okay, this is pretty cool. The tentative schedule looks interesting. Wow...six days long.

Lenn wrote:

08.17.05 at 10:09 AM

Can we all assume that you'll be going, Alder?

Alder wrote:

08.17.05 at 10:13 AM

6 days is a lot of time and $500 aint cheap. I'd love to go, but I'm not sure I can swing it.

Alder

Geoff Smith wrote:

08.17.05 at 10:13 AM

Looks like a great conference. Glad to see Paul Skinner will be there: his books on the soils and microclimates of Napa are incredible! And the Sequum wines he produces are top-notch.

Cheers,

Geoff Smith
St Helena Wine Merchants

Road_Kill wrote:

08.24.05 at 3:42 AM

People interested in the concept of terroir and specifically in the relationship between geology and wine are bound to have read James E. Wilson's Terroir. If not, I can highly recommend this book. Mr. Wilson is a former Shell geologist; after retiring he spend a lot of effort figuring out exactly how the diversity of soil types in France influences its wines. For those who are not only interested in geology, the book is larded with interesting historical anecdotes and it actually makes for a good read.