WINE & SPIRITS

TERROIR, TERROIR, TERROIR

In early August, an unusual confab convened in Long Island wine country. Winemakers from all over the world descended en masse on the Hamptons for a Sun Valley-style think-tank retreat. While the two-day powwow—focused on putting "Cool Climate/Maritime Wines in a Global Context"—might not have grappled with the most pressing world issues, for those who devote their lives to pleasures that can only be found in a glass, the issues at hand were momentous indeed.

The event kicked off with an elaborate dinner—a lobster bake at Bedell Cellars in the North Fork where the overseas guests got their first sips of Long Island wine. Pascal Jolivet, a winemaker from the Loire, who makes astonishingly flavorful Sancerre and Pouilly Fume, pronounced Macari Vineyards' Sauvignon Blanc to be the perfect match for Long Island clams. Alessio Dorigo, a winemaker from Friuli, tasted through intriguing white blends from Bedell and Channing Daughters, nodding his head in admiration after each sip.

The conference began the following day at Stony Brook University's Southampton campus. The visiting winemakers deconstructed their particular region's climate and soil. With all the talk of pH balance and tannins, I felt as if I were sitting in an advanced chemistry class.

If real estate is all about location, location, location, winemaking is all about terroir, terroir, terroir—which explains why that was the subtext of every single presentation ("Terroir, the Global Market and International Taste," "Who Has Terroir and How Do I Get It? "Terroir: The Art of Authenticity or Just Wine Gobbledygook?"). In brief, terroir encompasses the soil, climate and other magical intangible elements that contribute to making a great wine from a specific geographical site.

The winemaker's first challenge is to find the ideal grape variety for their particular microclimate—then they need to master the art of fermenting the juice to best bring out the personality inherent in the grapes. The wine world has been a twitter over too much homogenization, with producers focused on creating big, bold wines in the international style (to suit critic Robert Parker's particular palate) as opposed to wines that reflect the land from which they hail. The grapes should whisper their exact terroir.

Talk at the conference moved from globalization to global warming. In the wine world, even the slightest change in temperature can be catastrophic. Günter Kunstler from the Rheingau gave an Al Gore-style gloom and doom speech showing how drought and floods have ravaged vineyards in his region.

Jolivet gave a talk on "natural winemaking," similar but different from organic and biodynamic techniques. He uses no enzymes, rarely even wild yeasts, and cold ferments the juice for up to four months (conventional fermentation with yeasts is 10 days at most). The resulting wines have lovely aromas and vivid fruit tastes.

Steve Clifton of Brewer-Clifton in Santa Rita Hills—a Santa Barbara winery that consistently earns 90-point scores from Wine Spectator and from Robert Parker—gave a dynamic talk on techniques for balancing out the natural high acidity found in cool climate grapes. Because Alaskan currents bathe his region in fog and chilly maritime conditions, he grows only cool climate grapes like pinot noir, chardonnay and Italian varieties usually found in Friuli.

We all gathered to taste the fruits of the winemakers' labors, featuring 200 wines from Long Island wineries and select wines from visiting producers. I sipped Kunstler's Kirchenstuck Riesling, a complex mineral wine with delightful tingling acidity. I tried Jolivet's Savage and Indigene wines, two vividly flavored whites that screamed their terroir. The table laid out with Long Island sparkling wines—from Bedell, Sparkling Pointe; Shinn, The Old Field; Wölffer, Lenz and Lieb—drew the biggest crowds. As the evening came to a close, wine importer Kurt Eckert, offered an question to the group. "How do we market our now world-class Long Island wine region?" His answer: "We start by making this symposium an annual event."