I was in Lebanon when I first understood what terroir really meant.
‘The Cinsault, in this particular vintage, was magnificent,’ said Tarek Sakr, Technical Director of Château Musar, describing his most recent special cuvée. ‘It was so special that I asked the family if I might bottle 300 of them as a single varietal.’
It may not sound dramatic, but Musar’s entire philosophy had always been built around blending. This was a request to break that tradition.
At the time, I was barely a year into my wine journey. I had just discovered the joy of rich, heavily oaked Napa Cabernet. ‘So how will you age it?’ I asked, adding – thinking I was being rather clever – ‘I expect something that special deserves 100% new oak?’
What Tarek said next transformed my understanding of terroir and has shaped how I view great wine ever since.
The point was simple – he had discovered an incredible plot of Cinsault, grown in a year when the sun, soil, sea and every other element combined to produce something extraordinary. It was the finest expression of Cinsault he had ever tasted – perhaps ever would taste. Why on earth, he asked, would he mask that with new oak?
It wasn’t an anti-oak argument. We all know that, used judiciously, oak can produce glorious results. But he explained something that now seems obvious – the oak tree did not grow in the same soil as the vines. By introducing oak, you are adding an external influence. In his view, the perfect expression of Cinsault would be compromised by imported oak – a ‘made wine’, rather than a pure expression of place and time.
This commitment to true ephemera is what increasingly drives great winemakers today. Piero Incisa Della Rochetta, of Bodega Chacra, is already one of the finest examples. In our last conversation, he spoke about taking this even further – asking, how can you truly capture a vineyard’s essence if fermentation takes place elsewhere? His next step is to bury amphorae at the base of the vines themselves.
The Rio Negro Valley, Argentina
As I wrote previously, if there’s one golden rule in winemaking it is this: if a vigneron is willing to press and bottle the grapes from a tiny plot, without blending, it must be a remarkable piece of land, perfectly suited to the grape.
I never did find out what happened to Tarek’s 300. Perhaps, like the Spartans they were named after, they were all dispatched. I hope, though, that at least an Aristodemus and Pantites survived bottles that will tell the story of that year, and that vineyard, for many years to come.