• 1 A. Viberg, “The verbs of perception: a typological study”, Linguistics, 21(1), 1983, p. 123-162. h (...)
• 2 B.C. Smith (ed.), Questions of taste: the philosophy of wine, New York, Oxford University Press, 2 (...)
• 3 E. Peynaud & J. Blouin, Le Goût du Vin, Paris, Dunod, 2013.
• 4 OIV, Review document on sensory analysis of wine, 2015. Available at: https://www.oiv.int/public/m (...)
• 5 Q.J. Wang & D. Prešern, “Does blind tasting work? investigating the impact of training on blind ta (...)
• 6 B. Russell, Human Knowledge, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1948, p. 58

1The perception of wine is an experience that mainly operates through those human senses which were called “proximal” senses, like taste, smell, and tact, as opposed to the “upper senses” that work at a distance, like vision or hearing1. This makes wine tasting a much more personal, subjective experience2, if compared, for example, with vision, which can be considered a public perception. Stated in other words, due to the fact that to taste wine we have to bring the information carriers to the inside of our bodies, the sharing of perceptions with other individuals is not so straightforward. In an effort to allow communication, a large ensemble of fairly objective sensorial descriptors has been developed; the number of publications on these descriptors is very large, but the interested reader can find valuable information, for example, in Peynaud and Blouin3 or in OIV4. Many descriptors are expressions of physico-chemical properties detected by smell, taste and touch, as alcohol, molecules, and tannins content. Regarding these descriptors and their mutual balance, in due time a mainstream sense was established, being functional to describe a wine and, even, to assess quality or hedonic attributes. Through training, a person can build capabilities to join this mainstream awareness, characterized by “an alignment of sensory concepts”5, and then the tasting experience becomes less personal and more objective, more public in the sense defined by Russell6. Even in blind tastings, communication of those perceptions to other people is possible.

• 7 E. Vaudour, Les Terroirs Viticoles: définitions, characterization et protection, Malakoff, France, (...)
• 8 C. Van Leeuwen & G. Seguin, “The concept or terroir in viticulture”, Journal of Wine Research, 17( (...)

4While, obviously, we will comply with the official, exhaustingly discussed definition, we feel that for the sake of this paper some elements of the early text deserve attention. This position is justified by the long tradition of associating to the terroir concept certain elements linked to the human tradition and to the landscape; some synthesis in favor of this position can be found, for example, in Vaudour7 and van Leeuwen and Seguin8.

• 9 D. Wilson, R. Symoneaux, I. Maître, L. Miroux & F. Jourjon, “La typicité sensorielle des vins d’ap (...)

5From this perspective, the terroir component includes data on: the production region, its traditions and landscape; the vineyard and its history; the winemaker’s persona; winemaking culture and winemaking methods; and data on the wine’s geochemical background. With the possible exception of the two last items, the other ones are not physico-chemical, and for the sake of this paper, we treat them as carriers of “metaphysical” information, where this word is presently employed not in a theological or spiritual sense, but to express data processed using symbolical cognitive constructions. Other words could be “immaterial”, “subjective”, “symbolic” or “non-physical”, but hereafter we’ll use the first one. Concerning words, in an approach to terroir components or descriptors, Wilson et al.9 sent questionnaires to 4000 wine consumers in France, asking about which words would be more important to qualify a wine as being a terroir one. A choice of 16 words was offered, and not surprisingly, physico-chemical descriptors as soil, relief, region, climate and grape variety were the overwhelming majority of choices. What we presently call “metaphysical” parameters like local culture, savoir faire and history received much less votes, and the two proposed descriptors of a terroir wine that possibly would survive as descriptors in a blind tasting, which were “goût de terroir” and wine quality, received very few votes. These last two descriptors, both of them, can be considered as having a subjective component. From this introductory discussion, we suggest that the terroir concept has double bases, being respectively the physico-chemical ones, and the subjective, “metaphysical” bases as well.

• 10 N.A. Bokulich, J.H. Thorngate, P.M. Richardson & D.A. Mills, “Microbial biogeography of wine grape (...)
• 11 J. Döring,, M. Friedel, J.A. Rasmussen, M. Hendgen, S. Di Giacinto, & R. Kauer, “Soil microbial an (...)
• 12 J. Fanet, Les Terroirs du Vin, Paris, Hachette, 2008.
• 13 M.A. Matthews, Terroir and Other Myths of Winegrowing, Oakland, University of California Press, 20 (...)

7Taking as line of analysis the terroir definitions given in Section 1, we start from the physico-chemical perspective, which should better be expressed as the bio-physico-chemical view, in the light of what was reported by Bokulich et al.10 concerning the biota associated to specific viticultural regions or methods11 ; however, this broader perception is relatively new and still lacks further studies, and we will, therefore, limit ourselves to the first perspective. The initial perception is that the link terroir-wine is a difficult concept. We start with the soil component, in the mineral sense. Opinions on connections between soil (geochemical) and wine range between those openly positive, giving crucial importance to soil12, passing by a receptive position, to those plainly skeptical13, who doubts this connection and asks if terroir would not be a myth motivated by commercial interests.

• 14 M. Kramer, “The notion of terroir”, In F. Allhoff (ed.), Wine and Philosophy, Malden: Blackwell,20 (...)
• 15 A. Maltman, “The role of vineyard geology in wine typicity”, Journal of Wine Research, 19(1), 2008 (...)
• 16 J.R. Ducati, M.G. Bombassaro & J.M.G. Fachel, "Classifying Vineyards from Satellite Images: A case (...)
• 17 M.P. Sáenz-Navajas, H. Rodrigues, & D. Valentin, “Multidisciplinary strategies for understanding i (...)
• 18 R.E. Quandt, “On wine bullshit: a new software?”, Journal of Wine Economics, 2(2), 2007, p. 129-13 (...)

8The point is the connection, if any exists, of soil and its sensorial impact. From one side, it has been said that the goût de terroir “is mineral, stony, chalky, earthy,” suggesting soil attributes, more seldom fruity ones14, while at the opposite side, from geochemical considerations, it has been stated that the goût de terroir, defined as “being able to taste the vineyard geology in the wine”, is scientifically impossible15. However, in some way the soils express themselves into wine quality, a perception dating from Cistercian times and being supported even by studies based on satellite images16. But descriptors for a terroir wine are often ill-defined17, and some descriptive analysis have been strongly criticized18. Can we talk of a sensorial failure?

• 19 N. Poerner, E. Rodrigues, P.G. Celso, V. Manfroi & P.F. Hertz, “Diferenciação analítica de vinhos- (...)
• 20 C. Van Leeuwen, J.C. Barbe, P. Darriet, O. Geffroy, E. Gomès, S. Guillaumie, P. Helwi, J. Laboyrie (...)

9From an analytical approach linking soils and wines, this sensorial failure is in strong contrast to the fact that terroir does imprint geochemical marks in wine: elements and molecules can be analytically detected in wines, and their content and relative concentrations are markers of geographical origin19. Recently, a quantitative analysis suggested that aroma compounds and other possible terroir features can be measured20. Anyway, a researcher who persists in reviewing the literature can be lead to utter confusion, related to blind tastings and typicity.

• 21 L.S. Gonzaga, D.L. Capone, S.E.P. Bastian & D.W. Jeffery, “Sensory characterization and consumer p (...)
• 22 H. Johnson, The World Atlas of Wine, 4th edition. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1994.
• 23 Op. cit.
• 24 Op. cit.

10A trivial difficulty is what exactly a terroir wine is, sensorially. In blind tastings conducted by Gonzaga et al.21, well-stablished Old World (Bordeaux) wines tend to reveal more “earthy” typicity than New World (Australia) wines, which tend to display floral or fruity attributes; the arising perception is that, among terroir wines, some would be more terroir than others. However, a more moderate position would be to consider some regions as “paradigmatic”, like those first presented in extensive studies like those of Johnson22, Vaudour23 or Fanet24.

• 25 W. Parr, J. Green, J. Breitmeyer, D. Valentin & R. Sherlock, “Sensory and chemical differentiation (...)
• 26 J. Langlois, D. Valentin, D. Peyron, G. De Revel & C. Dacremont, « Bordeaux/Bourgogne: differences (...)

11From one side, blind tastings gave positive results to separate Sauvignon Blanc wines from France, New Zealand and Austria25, even if it is not certain that tasters would say “this wine is French!”. At the opposite side, blind tastings by Bordeaux and Burgundy professionals failed to identify Burgundian “vins de garde”26.

• 27 J.F. Bazin, Le Clos du Vougeot, Paris, Editions Chronique, 1987
• 28 J. Ballester, “In search of the taste of terroir: a challenge sensory science”, In C. Collins & R. (...)
• 29 C. Coates, The Wines of Burgundy, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2008
• 30 M. Kramer, “The notion of terroir”, In F. Allhoff (ed.), Wine and Philosophy, Malden: Blackwell,20 (...)

12The next point to analyse from the definitions of terroir given at Section 1 concerns the words “distinctive”, “typicity”, “area” and “geographical”. Here we are led to approach the paradigm in terroir and typicity concepts, the Burgundian vineyard. Intriguingly, even inside well-known appellations, contained in limited surfaces, like Échezeaux or Clos Vougeot, variations do occur, and in blind tastings by panels of local professionals, several wines of both appellations were reported to be different27, with samples of some producers being reported as “more typical” than others. The same happened with another respected Burgundian appellation, Vosne-Romanée, where a tasting of twenty samples by twenty experts revealed a gradient of typicality28. In a more ample perspective, if a reader analyses the tastings reported by Coates29 in his classical text on Burgundy wines, he or she will readily gather that the vintner style is a very important component in defining a Burgundy wine, a conclusion that perhaps would be in conflict with what is stated by Kramer30.

• 31 L. Perrin, R. Symoneaux, I. Maître & F. Jourjon, “Une approche pour l’evaluation sensorielle de la (...)
• 32 Op. cit.
• 33 M.A. Matthews, Terroir and Other Myths of Winegrowing, Oakland, University of California Press, 20 (...)

13Perhaps typicity should be viewed in a more ample perspective, at least geographically. This was done, for example, by Perrin et al.31, where “the verification of a sensorial space characteristic of a category”, that is, a typicity, was tested using samples of Loire wines blindly tasted by professionals acting in the region, meaning that they in principle knew these wines well. Results were mixed, in the sense that white wines had confusion in typicity, while red ones had their typicity recognized. In a review of blind tastings of terroir wines, Ballester32 concluded that “it is quite difficult to prove scientifically that each terroir (…) has its own sensory identity”. Still geographically, and from a viticultural point-of-view, we quote Mattthews33, who states that “the grapevine has no sense of political boundaries, tribal skirmishes or wine style conventions”.

• 34 R. Oliveira & J.R. Ducati, “Un terroir viticole au Brésil: changement et continuité [A viticultura (...)

14But all this doesn’t mean that terroir wines are intrinsically good or better, that is, that their “reputation” adds sensorial value or quality. We can bring as an example a very popular wine in south Brazil made from grapes of American origin as Isabella and Niagara since the beginning of the Italian presence at the Serra Gaúcha region in the 1870s34. Some existing vineyards are 130 years old, a time that spans over about five generations; there is a collective knowledge, and this wine undoubtedly qualifies as a terroir wine since it is associated with a region, a landscape shaped by vineyards, has a geographical identity, and has a human tradition. Prices are quite affordable and from a technical approach quality levels vary. For consumers more acquainted with wines from vinifera these labrusca wines can be almost undrinkable, but, however, this is a matter of preference; for what it presently matters, they are terroir wines.

• 35 K.R. Pogue, “Geological justifications for the distinctiveness of federally sanctioned American Vi (...)
• 36 Tonietto, J., Pereira, R.V., Zanus, M.C., Falcade, I., & Guerra, C.C. (2016). Criteria used in the (...)

15Collective knowledges have been constructed in new viticultural regions. This stems from the fact that skilled winemakers, in many places all over the world, succeed in producing very good, exception wines, translating to their regions the “savoir faire” from traditional terroirs. It would seem, from this analysis, that almost all wines could qualify to be terroir ones. However, we feel that the traditional Old World perception still holds, and that some paradigmatic regions still are, with all due respect to other (newer) regions, more terroir. This is slowly changing, as newer regions accumulate collective knowledge and the landscape is quantitatively described and shaped by vineyards, in a trend towards wine typicity. We cite as examples of how these studies have been developed the papers by Pogue35 concerning AVAs in the Columbia Basin, USA, and of Tonietto et al.36 on Geographical Indications in Brazil.

• 37 J.F Bazin, Op. cit. ; F. Perrin, Op. cit. ; J. Ballester, Y. Zhang, J.P. Gervais & J.Y. Bizot, “Se (...)

16This expansion in wine diversity is so large that for most wine amateurs, and perhaps even for some wine professionals, keeping a global perspective becomes difficult, if not impossible, in special if it is necessary to keep an adequate record in memory, not in written notes, as it is the case of blind tastings; the solution tends to be to specialize, leading to a loss of the global perspective. We have just cited some experiments37 were panels of blind tasters were composed of local specialists. When blind tastings have as focus the identification of terroir wines, globally, things become much more difficult.

• 38 J. Dilworth, “Mmmm…not Aha! Imaginative vs. Analytical Experiences in Wines”, In: F. Allhoff (ed.) (...)
• 39 N. Burton & J. Flewellen, The concise guide to wine and blind tasting, Acheron Press, Oxford, 2016
• 40 Op. cit.
• 41 S. Heimoff, A conversation with The Bourghound, Allen Meadows, Part 2, 2012. Available at www.stev (...)
• 42 R. Scruton, I Drink Therefore I Am. A Philosopher’s Guide to Wine, London, Continuum International (...)
• 43 E. Peynaud, Op. cit.

17If wine tasting can be considered a problem-solving task38, blind tasting would be a harder challenge. It is not the focus of this article to discuss blind tastings; the interested reader can find a discussion, for example, in Burton and Flewellen39. However, it is our perception that the practice of blind tasting is relatively rare in wine appreciation. It received little space in the classical book by Peynaud and Blouin40, and is not praised by specialists41 or philosophers42. However, in some circumstances blind tastings are very didactical and act as lessons of humility43.

• 44 A. Castriota-Scanderberg, G.E. Hagberg, A. Cerasa, G. Committeri, G. Galati, F. Patria, S. Pitzali (...)
• 45 Op. cit.

19A series of blind tastings took place at the tasting room of the Brazilian Society of Friends of Wine (Sociedade Brasileira dos Amigos do Vinho - Regional Sul - SBAV/RS), at its chapter in the city of Porto Alegre. This society is a brotherhood founded in 1982, focused on studying wines of all countries; the Society has access to a large number of international wines, thanks to the extreme diversity of the Brazilian market; besides, many special wines are brought by associates from their travels abroad. Although not being professionals in the wine business, these people benefit from many years in wine studies. In which measure this involvement with wine turned the members of this group in reliable tasters? We know from the research of Castriota-Scanderberg et al.44 that in wine tastings the brains of trained sommeliers are activated in different ways than the brains of common tasters; the differences were due to alterations in the sommeliers’ brain processing induced by learning on the stimulus vector, the wine. This above-mentioned study didn’t report which alterations would exist in non-professional persons that study wine for long periods; presently we will accept that the cognitive strategies of these non-wine-professionals, compared with the general wine drinker are, at least, more sophisticated. The number of tasters involved in the blind tasting sessions was typically about ten persons of both sexes with ages between 40 and 70 years; the group gathered weekly, and many sessions were and still are dedicated to studies of wine identity. Other sessions, in fact the majority of them, had open labels and served as training exercises for learning on regions, grape varieties, aging and other subjects. In several aspects, this group is similar and operates like the one described in Quandt45.

• 46 S. Charters & S. Pettigrew, S., “Is wine consumption an aesthetical expérience?”, Journal of Wine (...)

21Tasters have to answer questions like “which is the wine that better expresses that grape variety?”, or “which wine presents (or doesn’t) some typicity?”, and, obviously, “which wine do you prefer?”. In looking for answers the tasters can benefit from their memories of the open-labels sessions. Afterwards, labels were revealed, and questions were “now that you know, do you recognize the terroir wine?”, “the best wine was a terroir wine?”, or “that Burgundian chardonnay was typical Burgundian, and was typical chardonnay?”. It must be stressed that, even if during the tastings considerations were made on wine attributes as balance, alcohol, tannins or acidity, the present analysis was not about these attributes; from the revision made in the preceding Section we believe that there are indications that what characterizes terroir wines and distinguishes them from other wines are not these attributes. Support to answer the questions above came only from the memories accumulated during hundreds of open-labels tastings. In these 41 blind sessions, about 240 wines from 12 countries and dozens of viticultural regions were tasted. Each tasting session originated a report; the entire collection of tasting reports can be accessed at www.sbav.com.br or is available from the author. A general descriptive analysis was performed on this database to look for and to quantify terroir recognition; specifically, each report was analysed to verify if, among the samples, terroir wines were identified and valued. This survey, as presently explained, is fundamentally different of the kind of surveys like the one reported by Charters and Pettigrew46, not only in the sense that real tastings took place, but also that the focus is on a specific kind of wine, the terroir wine. Specifically, in each report we looked for information on: a) if the terroir wine was recognized; b) how the terroir wine was classified among the session’s wine selection; c) if, in terms of typicity (of grape variety or region), the terroir wine was more, or less, typical, or, if typicity was difficult to assess, if it separated itself from the others.

• 47 C. Mercer, “NY restaurant couple mistakenly served $2000 Mouton 1989 after ordering $18 Pinot”, De (...)

25The task is further complicated by the fact that the industry is now capable of delivering good wines. Here, the word “industry” is deliberately used, related to wines that technically, from an oenological reference, can be recognized as good or at least with no defects, even if suffering from mass production and de-localization. They come from vast vineyards, or from grapes coming from more than one region, and are processed in refinery-like facilities. Winemaking methods are elaborate and fine-tuned to satisfy specific classes of consumers, and prices vary accordingly. It has been observed that, more frequently that would be expected or desired, those non-terroir wines perform well in blind tastings. A recent incident cast light on a somewhat different possibility47 which, however, illustrates this discussion. So, even with industrial bias, some de-localized wines can give significant pleasure, and can be not recognized as such, with the possible exception of being tasted by skilled professionals. Especially in blind tastings the memory problem arises, since the access to written notes does not exist. It seems that the dichotomy between the physico-chemical descriptors of a wine, and what we have called the metaphysical attributes, the “goût de terroir” or the “taste of place”, now deserves to be discussed. How to insert them in this study?

• 48 S. Charters & S. Pettigrew, S., Op. Cit.; T. Crane, “Wine as an Aesthetic Object”, In B.C. Smith ( (...)
• 49 Op. cit., p. 125
• 50 C. Korsmeyer, Making Sense of Taste, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1999.

26We feel that this insertion can be made by considering wine drinking as an aesthetical experience, and the tasting a terroir wine as an enlarged aesthetical experience. The aesthetical nature of wine consumption has already been discussed elsewhere48 and presently will not be retaken. However, we argue that not only wine tasting is an aesthetic experience, but the supplementary information brought along with a terroir wine is an added-value to this experience. In our support we cite Charters and Pettigrew49: “…some of the major aesthetic debates centre (…) in the nature of the aesthetic response, including the concentration required, the nature of pleasure in the experience and whether or not it is primarily cognitive, emotional or sensory”. We note the importance that is given to the cognitive part of the experience, that is, to the information associated to the object of contemplation. In our case, taking wine as the object of contemplation, we place terroir wines in a “much wider symbolic context rather than merely as artworks or capable of aesthetic evaluation. They have a symbolic function that extends beyond even the most sophisticated savoring”50.

• 51 R. Scruton, “The Philosophy of Wine”. In B.C. Smith (ed.), Questions of taste: the philosophy of w (...)
• 52 A. Castriota-Scanderberg, G.E. Hagberg, A. Cerasa, G. Committeri, G. Galati, F. Patria, S. Pitzali (...)

28The above reflexions suggest that wine, being an artwork or not, may be approached by a variety of attitudes. Wines were described as “stimulants that have mind-altering effects which are in some way internally related to the experience of consuming them”51. We already have mentioned that wine ingestion influences brain processes52 in ways that vary as a function of the type of subject. The general attitude derived from mind-altering effects would come from what we presently call the wine consumer, going up to the wine connoisseur; they know and like wine, and drink it as a hedonistic or aesthetical experience, focusing in the physico-chemical attributes (colour, taste, aroma, texture; or tannins, acidity, alcohol). In a different level, be it superior or not, there would be what presently we call the terroir wine lover, who wants additional values: not only he/she enjoys the aesthetical experience, but in addition they long for associated metaphysical information, meaning data on the production region, its traditions and landscape, the vineyard, winemaking methods and culture, and on the winemaker’s persona.

• 53 OIV, Resolution OIV/VITI 333/2010, Definition of vitivinicultural “terroir”, 2010. Available at: h (...)
• 54 S. Charters, Op. cit.
• 55 Op. cit.,2007, p. 16
• 56 K. Bach, “Knowledge, Wine and Taste: What Good is Knowledge (in Enjoying Wine)?”, In B.C. Smith (e (...)
• 57 S.M. McClure, J. Li, D. Tomlin, K.S. Cypert, L.M. Montague & P.R. Montague, “Neural correlates of (...)

29We argue that what the terroir wine lover looks for is closely associated with the concept of terroir, either the official definition that was laboriously constructed by the International Organization of Vine and Wine53, or, perhaps even more, with the preliminary definition cited in Section 1. In the examples described above, art can be simply consumed54 or more deeply perceived, and we suggest that a similar reasoning can be applied to a product to be felt by the “lower senses”, that is, to wine, when we think of the terroir attributes. Sometimes the story behind a wine can be greater than the wine, provided that the (metaphysical) information associated to the wine is known, generating a synergy which enables an enriched appreciation of the ensemble. This perception is expressed by Scruton55, in spite of his skeptical attitude towards the aesthetical nature of wine, when he states: “in savouring it we are knowing – by acquaintance, as it were – the history, geography, and customs of a community”; from the context we understand that he’s writing about a terroir wine. In other words, knowledge on a wine increases, or at least changes, the pleasure of drinking it56, by changing the ways the brain evaluates the wine or the product being ingested57.

• 58 N. Joly. Available at http://www.coulee-de-serrant.com, visited online on December 2, 2020.

31In the above categorization, it is not mandatory that, for the terroir wine lover, physico-chemical attributes and raw pleasure come first or are sine qua non conditions, prior to the enjoyment of the metaphysical attributes which are typical of terroir. It’s a situation where one has to consider the weight of the assertion “Avant d’être bon, un vin doit être vrai”58. But, presently, the focus of our discussion was if in blind tastings the “metaphysical” part survives. The question was: “In blind tastings, terroir can be recognized, or valued”? From the experiments described in Section 3, and the ensuing discussion, it follows that most, if not all, terroir attributes are lost in blind tastings; in these experiments, terroir and non-terroir wines would be all the same.

• 59 R. Grahm, “The soul of wine: digging for meaning”, In F. Allhoff (ed.), Wine and Philosophy, Malde (...)
• 60 N. Joly, Op. cit.

34Blind tastings are prone to be a problem to the terroir idea. Terroir wine lovers start their journey from the basic condition that a wine should be good, but as the terroir perception evolves this condition eventually loses some strength. From the above discussion we argue that, in the terroir debate, the question it’s not if terroir wines must be the better ones. For the terroir wine lover, terroir is an added value that only is enjoyed when there is associated information; he longs for this added value, which carries imaginative or representational attributes that we are calling metaphysical. In fact, we argue that terroir is the metaphysical parameter, which is lost in blind tastings. If we bring, for this discussion’s purposes, the often used metaphor that describes wine as a living being, terroir gives something unique to a wine: it gives it a soul, a word that obviously is used symbolically, with no literal or theological sense, and presently carrying a broader meaning, in our opinion, than the soul of wine as described by Grahm59. For a terroir wine, being good is not enough, and perhaps, keeping a citation already mentioned60, being good is not the main attribute; a terroir wine must bear its deep origin, its truth, meaning its soul, which either reveals itself at its origin or is kept in memory.