Spittoon.biz

God, the guy is an arse. I just hate his pomposity, his ‘this is what I say so it is right’ attitude and his way of having to make everything in the wine world irrelevant to those who drink wine. Why has he declared a ‘war’ against the basic concepts that make wine such a fascinating and ever varied subject? He, by the way, being Malcolm Gluck.
His latest rant covers terroir. He sums it up as “bullshit”.
Terroir is a combination of the location of a vineyard and all that effects it – from the choice of grape, the soils it is planted in, the method of cultivation, the weather and sunlight and the intervention of man on such things. To cast aside all reason that such aspects have no effect on the final product to me is ludicrous!
I have read through the article twice now and cannot see any explanations as to why his thoughts are correct and everyone else is wrong. He doesn’t name anyone else who supports his ideas either.

This war on terroir is, then, an unequal struggle. Massed against myself and my cohorts – a few wine writers, mostly in the New World, agree with me – are decades of acceptance of this concept of terroir by unthinking drinkers, the self-serving experts and the marketeers. These beliefs are also influenced by that cultural predisposition whereby many people think that the answer always lies in the soil. Just as humanity made myriad deities from the sun and the night sky, so we tend to believe that things grown have a special status. It has been the world of wine’s most conspicuous victory of fantasy over logic that so many people relate to terroir without having a clue what it is they have faith in.”

Terroir is not the be-all and end-all of wine making – winemakers have so many options and methods to effect the final product but the initial harvest and all that effects it does have an influence. Man is part of the terroir equation. Those with a modicum of interest in wine are not that fussed by the notions of terroir but to imply that everything about the vineyard is ‘bullshit’ is just wrong.
Gluck has always put himself as the champion of the underclass – banging on about how £2.99 wines are better than those at two, three or four times the price. His use of phrases such as ‘canny tippler’ and constantly implying that everyone else is trying to confuse and hoodwink the drinker shows a great deal about his attitude. I will refrain from any cynical implications between the two, article/rant and the publication of his new book (Amazon.co.uk £13.20).