Regions & Terroir

The French word covers more than soil. Terroir is the whole setting of a vineyard: the climate (temperature, sunshine, rainfall), the soil and the rock beneath it, the shape of the land (its slope, direction and altitude), and the local know-how of the people who farm it. Change any one and the wine changes.

Burgundy is where the idea was refined. Medieval monks, especially the Cistercians, farmed the Côte d'Or for centuries and noticed that grapes from neighbouring plots ripened and tasted differently, even with the same grape and the same methods. They divided the hillside into small named parcels, the climats, which are still the basis of its classification. UNESCO recognised the climats of Burgundy as a World Heritage landscape in 2015.

Soil influences wine mainly through water and warmth: how well it drains, how much water it holds for the vines to draw on in a dry summer, and how much heat it stores and gives back at night. Whether you can actually taste the rock is debated, and scientists are sceptical of a direct mineral effect, but the differences between plots are real and repeatable.

Terroir is also a claim you can test. Taste two wines made by one producer from neighbouring plots of the same grape, and the difference is the idea in action.

Bordeaux is the largest fine-wine region, best known for red blends of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. It is split by the Gironde estuary. The Left Bank (the Médoc, with Pauillac, Margaux and Saint-Julien) has gravelly soil that suits Cabernet Sauvignon. The Right Bank (Saint-Émilion, Pomerol) has clay and limestone that suit Merlot. Sauternes, to the south, makes the famous sweet wine.

Burgundy makes Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, nearly always as a single grape, and names them for places rather than grapes. Champagne, in the cool north, is the home of sparkling wine. The Rhône Valley is two regions in one: the north is Syrah, steep and peppery; the south is Grenache-led blends, warm and generous, including Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

The Loire is a long river of light, fresh wines from many grapes: Muscadet, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc at Sancerre, Cabernet Franc at Chinon. Alsace, on the German border, is the one major French region that labels its wines by grape, and makes aromatic whites such as Riesling and Gewürztraminer.

There is more to see: Beaujolais, the Languedoc, the Jura, Savoie and the south-west. But these six give you the templates, and understanding them makes the rest easy to place.

Burgundy ranks the land itself. At the base is regional wine (Bourgogne), then wines named for a village, then premier cru vineyards, and at the top grand cru, a small number of the finest sites. The rank goes with the vineyard, not with the producer who farms it, so two growers with plots in the same grand cru sell wines with the same rank.

Bordeaux's most famous classification dates from 1855, made for the Paris Exposition. It ranked the leading châteaux of the Médoc (plus one from Graves, Haut-Brion) in five levels, or growths, along with those of Sauternes. It ranks estates, not land, and has barely changed since. Saint-Émilion has its own classification, revised roughly every ten years.

Germany measures ripeness at harvest: the Prädikat ladder runs from Kabinett through Spätlese and Auslese to the rare, sweet Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese. Italy has DOC and DOCG, Spain has ageing categories such as Reserva.

A rank is a shortcut to reputation and price, not a promise about what you will like. A humble village wine from a talented grower may be more enjoyable than an overpriced grand cru. Learning the systems just tells you what a label is claiming.

Italy has hundreds of native grapes and a dizzying range of styles. In the north-west, Piedmont makes Nebbiolo (Barolo and Barbaresco) and the everyday red Barbera. Tuscany is the home of Sangiovese, in Chianti Classico and the more expensive Brunello di Montalcino. The Veneto makes Amarone from dried Corvina grapes, as well as Soave and much of the world's Prosecco.

Spain has more land under vine than any other country. Rioja is the best known: Tempranillo, blended with Garnacha, aged in oak, and labelled by how long it was aged (Crianza, Reserva, Gran Reserva). Ribera del Duero, on a high dry plateau, makes more powerful Tempranillo. Rías Baixas, on the Atlantic coast, makes salty, crisp Albariño.

Portugal has more than 250 native grapes. The Douro Valley is its most famous region, home to Port and to increasingly serious dry reds from the same terraced vineyards, with Touriga Nacional the leading grape.

Across all three, wines tend to be built for the table: high acidity, savoury notes, moderate fruit. The grape names may be unfamiliar, and that is part of the pleasure.

The Mosel is the classic image of German wine: vineyards climbing steep slate slopes above a winding river. The slate holds the day's heat and the river reflects light, which lets Riesling ripen this far north. The wines are low in alcohol, often 8 to 10 per cent, high in acidity and range from bone-dry to very sweet. The Prädikat labels tell you how ripe the grapes were, and trocken says the wine is dry.

Austria's Wachau is a gorge on the Danube with steep terraces of Grüner Veltliner and Riesling. Its producers use three levels, Steinfeder, Federspiel and Smaragd, rising in ripeness and power. Further east in Burgenland, red grapes such as Blaufränkisch and Zweigelt do well in a warmer climate.

Hungary's Tokaj, in the far north-east, produces one of the world's great sweet wines from the Furmint grape, affected by noble rot. Autumn mists rising from the rivers encourage botrytis, and Tokaj was ranked as a wine region by royal decree nearly three centuries ago.

The common thread is cool climate and sun-facing slopes: the further north the vineyard, the more the slope matters.

Wine-making in Georgia is thought to go back around 8,000 years, and Anatolia, in modern Turkey, was another early centre. Today Turkey is a huge grape grower, but most of its crop is eaten fresh or dried, and wine is a small, ambitious part of the picture. A wave of wineries founded since the 1990s has turned back to the country's own grapes.

The east is harsh, high country. Around Elazığ, Öküzgözü, whose name means ox eye, gives fresh, juicy reds with soft tannins, and around Diyarbakır Boğazkere, the throat burner, gives dark, tannic ones. They are traditionally blended, each covering the other's weakness. Near Ankara, Kalecik Karası is a light, perfumed red that was nearly lost before it was revived in the 1970s. In the centre, Cappadocia's volcanic vineyards above 1,000 metres make Emir, a razor-sharp white, and in Tokat Narince makes a softer, floral one.

Turkey does not yet have a formal appellation system for wine, so labels name the grape, a broad region and the producer. Georgia is different in its methods: Kakheti's white grapes are fermented on their skins in buried clay qvevri to make amber wines, and Saperavi, a grape whose flesh is red, makes deep, acidic reds.

California's Napa Valley made its name with Cabernet Sauvignon, in a warm, dry climate where the grapes ripen fully. It is only one valley of many: Oregon, further north, is cool enough for Pinot Noir, and the Willamette Valley is its heart. The United States uses American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) to define grape-growing areas by geography.

New Zealand's Marlborough put Sauvignon Blanc on the world map from the late 1970s and 1980s, with an intense style of passion fruit and cut grass. Central Otago, the world's most southerly wine region, has a dry, sunny, continental climate and makes Pinot Noir. Australia's Barossa Valley is known for rich Shiraz from very old vines, some over a hundred years old.

In South America, Argentina's Mendoza grows Malbec at 800 to 1,500 metres, where cold nights preserve freshness in a hot, dry country. In South Africa, Stellenbosch and the Western Cape make Cabernet blends, Chenin Blanc and the country's own Pinotage.

New World regions show what a grape does when nobody tells it what to be, and that freedom is why so many of them are still experimenting with new grapes and styles.