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🍷 Terroir (tare-WAHr) explained
Terroir is one of the many fun and interesting things about wine, though it is often misunderstood, so let’s talk about it!
Haley Shubert
April 24, 2025
The Weekly Sip with Haley Shubert
After last week’s Sip, some of you reached out to me with questions about a vocabulary word I used. Terroir is one of the many fun and interesting things about wine, though it is often misunderstood, so let’s talk about it!
Broadly speaking, terroir, pronounced tare-WAHr, is a term used to describe how a region’s climate, soils, and terrain affect the taste of wines. Warmer climates allow grapes to produce more natural sugars, resulting in more fruit-forward wines with higher alcohol content. On the flip side, cooler climate means less sugar production by the grapes, meaning lower alcohol content and more acidic wines. There are also hundreds of different soils, rocks, and minerals found in vineyards around the world. When wine grapes are growing on the vines, the components of the ground the vines are planted in act as a filter for water as it makes its way to the roots. Think of it like a coffee filter-water flows over the grounds, passes through a filter, and tada! You have all the flavors of coffee without having the gritty grounds mixed in. Terrain also plays a big part in a region’s terroir. Elevation, mountains, valleys, proximity to a coast or large inland body of water, and even other plants in the area have an effect on a wine’s final form. Elevation obviously impacts temperature, mountains cast shade over valleys, access to water is necessary for growth, and other plants can impact how much water and nutrients are available for the grapevines. All of these things are taken into consideration when describing a region’s terroir, or even the terroir of a specific vineyard within that region.
 | This week’s Sip is the 2023 Domaine Orion Chablis from Lea Schaller, and it is the perfect example of what I’m talking about. The grapes are grown in the Chablis region of Burgundy, France which is known for its unique terroir properties. It is considered a cool continental climate, meaning it has cold winters and warm, but not hot, summers. This allows for slower grape ripening and higher acidity content. It is also far inland and does not contain any large bodies of water, meaning the soils here are rich and considered ancient because they don’t typically get washed away and replaced. This wine is grown in limestone laced soil, aged on yeasts that are native to the region and fermented in stainless steel tanks. This results in a crisp, elegant wine with notes of limestone and flint from the soil, accented by specific regional qualities from the yeasts and without the addition of influence from oak barrels or clay jugs. This wine is also produced from 100% Chardonnay grapes, so for those of you who think you hate Chardonnay because you’ve only ever had rich, oaky versions of it, I would highly encourage you to have an open mind, and open palate, and give this wine a try. It just reaffirms my belief that there’s something in every category for every consumer, and if you think you don’t enjoy a specific something, I’d say you probably just haven’t found the right version for you yet. |
I also have some news for you! I know you all have seen my links to the Spirit Shop Falls Road in my recent posts, and starting in May, you will also be able to find me there full time! I am really excited for this new adventure and I hope you all will stop by and see me! As always, if you need help finding this wine, need suggestions, or have questions or comments, please let me know. I am reachable at [email protected] for all your sipping needs.
Cheers!
