I Schist you Gniess!

Reading about wine production around the world requires a fair bit of knowledge about soils and rocks. Having a biology degree and a father who is a biologist you would think that I might have gleaned some learning along the way. However, we all have our blocks and I find I have a hard time discerning sandstone from granite. Quartz, schist, loam, marble, clay… well there’s plenty to know. And each region has its own special terroir, which according to the marketing team, defies the laws of horticulture providing the most unique and unreplicable microclimate for their vines no matter its constitution.

Like most pursuits, reference has its benefits. If you’ve ever walked a vineyard from one of the terroir greats, then you have a memory imprint of that place. The hillsides of Pomerol, the stones of Chateau Neuf du Pape, the gravelly barren banks of the Gironde… these I’ve seen. Rolling hills of Tuscany, the Swiss mountains near Vevey, the giant eucalyptus trees and "Rutherford Dust” of Napa… I have safely stored away and can call upon when needed. But others, the flinty soils, limestone, shale or schist, mountains of Spain… no idea. The Mendoza terrain… the famous Burgundian limestone and shale, are fuzzier. I can imagine… but I don’t “know”.

My first 2 classes in this wine production and viticulture degree are soil science and viticulture. Actually, they are Papatūānuku & Soil Science and Āronga Māori and Viticultural Practices … and how freaking cool does that sound?

I’m digging up soil today at my family’s cabin in the taiga boreal forest of Northern Alberta to do an analysis of the fine earth materials. Finally… a reference point for the difference between silt and clay. Although I’ve spent time with various wine makers and owners in the vineyards before, its so hard to follow what they see and what they tell you. Mica, schist, mineral, alluvial… makes my head spin. They speak in wonder, parlaying their passion for the soil and its effect on the vines. Kicking up dust on a hot summers evening, I can’t get past the beauty of the vines and the rapture in their voice.

So why do people love viticulture? It’s a whole science…it’s the wonder on the variations of the details on the various intimate properties of each facet. Permeability, slope, drainage, content, microbial activity, density, organics, pH…and this is just soil!! As Rhianna and Kanye sing “Hold me back, I’m bout to spazz”. It’s just cool to analyze and wonder… what’s going to show in the glass?

Then one drunken moment, you taste it. You taste the terroir. Or at least you taste the difference. The minerals, the ripening, the water stress. You get it. And suddenly, you found one more imprint to reference. The first time I could identify eucalyptus in a Barossa Valley Cabernet, where I’ve never been, I swear I won the wine lottery! What they wrote, I could taste! Like an air bubble surfacing to the top, I got it!

I schist you gneiss.