The Rain Of Terroir, Going To The Source
Posted by Johndn in WritingThe Rain of Terroir
The word would be French.
Terroir. Like connoisseur. Meaning, of course, earth. A patch of earth. A very particular patch of earth. With its very particular rainfall, its particular winters, its sunshine. Its acidity. And yes, its people, whereby a local ethnic trait such as, well, say obsessive humming transmutes into a subtle note in the wine produced from that patch of earth year after year after year. And some hallowed patches just happen to produce the most rarified wine or sauerkraut or tobacco or chocolate on the face of the earth. Lucky the heir to the world’s supreme sauerkraut acre. Or a tiny celestial vineyard in Burgundy or Bordeaux. That 53 Sschrunk Flossentuth Bongomme Graffitte is worth its weight in gold. For the snootiest chocolate snoot, only chocolate from a small plantation in Madagascar will do. And for the poetry snob, only a few small farms in New Hampshire in a dry summer can give rise to the most lucid American plainsong, and one or two streets in the East Village can ever hope to match the abstruse sonorities of the great Mallarm
