Customer Reviews

Great Wine Terroirs

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This is a very good text for wine geeks ( I am a proud one myself), but not for the beginner to wine. If you are a lover of French wines and have a bent towards geology, then this is the perfect reference for you! The maps and soil diagrams are wonderful.

This is a good, generally accessible, though not exact novice-friendly book on the role of terroir, the land both from geology and from meteorology, in the making of fine wines. There are a couple of more technical, texts on wine growing soils (Soils for Fine Wines which I can recommend, and Understanding Vineyard Soils which I haven't read) as well out there. This one can be enjoyed by any wine geek, I mean fan.

Fanet's (translated) book is an excellent overview of the link between geology, soils, and the concept of terroir-driven wines. The maps are absolutely gorgeous, and UC Press is to be commended for not taking the cheap (black and white) road on a few of these. Numerous photos, maps, illustrations, diagrams enrich the narrative as Fanet moves primarily among and between French viticultural terroirs. So if you are a French wine geek, or a love of French wines, it's a great volume. I can imagine traveling with it as it does not come in a giant encyclopedic format.
That said, the strength of the volume (French wine and terroirs) is also its greatest weakness since most areas of the world get very brief treatment. For California, just as one example, Fanet claims that terroir wasn't important to California producers until recently. What he probably means to say is that terroir itself was not sought after or emphasized as part of the producer/winery discourse in California. But terroir in and of itself, as a thing (biophysical qualities, plus winemaker choices) has always been in every place that produces wine. Some wines are opaque reflections of the landscape, terrain, and climate (terroir), while others are more transparent. But partnered with a larger book like the Oxford Guide or Sotheby's massive volume that includes producers, and this would make a happy combo. Some aspects of Fanet's original text will seem a bit outdated to readers, since so much changes in the wine world (and almost every year), but it's solid, and interesting. Apart from some stilted translation here and there, mostly sticking in redundant or unnecessary "The"s everywhere, it's a great resource. I plan on teaching with it....and soon.