A New, Looser Interpretation of Terroir

Terroir comes from the word terre “land”. It was originally a French term in wine, coffee and tea used to denote the special characteristics that the geography, geology and climate of a certain place bestowed upon particular varieties.

Or so says some guy on Wikipedia. Terroir is one of those things the wine world tries desperately to claim as all their own. However, I’d argue that a more nuanced, progressive interpretation of the concept allows room for many other things. Even the Wikipedia entry hints at the possibility of terroir in things such as coffee or tea. I’d argue there’s terroir in everything, but for the purposes of this blog, I’ll focus on the terroir in craft beer and music.

Honestly, I’m not really sure how wine can claim terroir and beer can’t. In fact, local agricultural and environmental factors may play a larger role in the character of a beer than wine since beer requires so many more ingredients. Sure, in modern production, wine more often than beer sticks to regional factors in creating flavor, but there are breweries who use only local products to produce their beverage that can’t be discounted.

That said, the original concept was to divide regions by the flavor profiles they produced in wine. A newer, more global take on this idea may look at the characteristics of various locales on the same product. For example, a beer produced in Colorado might use hops from the Pacific Northwest, Belgain yeast, barley from Canada, and local water to create something that recalls all of these regions. Sure, to the traditionalist, this might not be a case of terroir. However, I’d argue that the unique characteristics of each ingredient combines to make something hard to duplicate.

Maybe that doesn’t work for your understanding of terroir. What about the ability of humans to import all the ingredients of a region to create something that tastes and smells just as it would had it been brewed closer to its origin? In earlier discussions on this blog, I mentioned how engineering and brewing know-how can often allow a brewery to easily recreate an illusion of terroir with little regard to location.

Lost in all of this is the idea that humans can be a part of terroir. Literally, terroir refers to the land. However, this has been generally understood to include the water, climate, and other local factors. So, why not the people? They too are influenced by local factors and bring cultural perspectives to craft that can be unique to a particular terroir. People have to be considered whether you have a strict understanding or terroir or not.

At this point, I get that my interpretation may be too loose, too deconstructed, post-modern for your tastes, but I make similar arguments for many traditions and constructs beyond brewing (and music). For example, English is an evolving language that reinvents itself constantly, inventing new words, spellings, and conventions at every turn. The ideas or art, marriage, race, or the role of government are changing constantly. So, why can’t we adjust our idea of terroir to match the global times in which we live?

Now that I’ve cleared that up, I’d like to move on to terroir in music. Terroir, IMO, manifests itself in two ways when it comes to popular music. First, there’s the scene. There was a reason all the major labels flocked to Seattle 20 years ago. They all wanted a piece of that grungy terroir. Second, bands take on the terroir of a place when they write and/or record in a particular place. Why else would bands opt to record in Memphis or Chicago?

The music scene is an indie thing. Corporate leaches try as they may to capture the excitement of a thriving rock scene, but they’re often three or four years too late. Bands in scenes feed off each other, encourage one another, and often influence each other’s sound. There’s a reason most bands in Brooklyn sound like the Walkmen. Those aforementioned gunge bands all had a similar aesthetic even if they were decidedly different bands. I still get confused when I hear the opening bars to any Chicago band from just before the turn of the century. These scenes represent a very human, inorganically organic terroir like one can never find in wine.

Eventually, bands look to capture a sound that’s influenced them or turned them on. Beirut is a perfect example of a “band” that takes the influences of the road with it. Whether it be Gypsy music, French pop, or Mexican mariachi, Beirut has adopted each of these sounds as its own. (Although, it sounds as if the new one breaks from this. Stay tuned.) Another example is when a band like Pavement (among many, many others from the era) headed down to Memphis to recorded at the venerable Easley Studios, providing a certain amount of smoked BBQ and southern comfort not usually attained in northern cities.

Anything contains a certain amount of terroir. For me, terroir is a flavor or sound that can only be produced by the necessary ingredients from various locales. I don’t really care if it’s all from one location or whether it comes from all over. The end result is what matters. And within that beer or between the notes of a record, you can sense the regional influence. It’s that funk from Belgian yeast strands or the steel guitar from a month in Bluegrass country. Terroir is the undeniable piney character of a Northwestern hop or the grittiness of an album recorded in Manhattan.

I prefer not to be held down by tradition. Building International Coalitions Through Beer and Pavement is about redefining the world to better grasp humanity and the enjoyment of such things as craft beer and indie rock. If this blog has a bit of terroir, that might be it. Now, you should add your terroir to the mix and give me your take. Have I bastardized a concept that should remain unchanged or have I challenged constructs that needed challenging.

Or should I write about something else? Expect another top-5 on Monday. Cheers!