Wine & Spirits - Fall 2012 - (Page 22)

life IN THE dirt What does your work entail at LAMS? Lydia: It’s a laboratory. We go to the site to put together a proﬁle of the soils. We analyze the soil health and determine what the vignerons need to continue to do—and what they need to stop doing—to get the vine to really express its place. The objective is to allow the farmer to better know the terrain and its composition to better manage the soil and have a higher quality product. Claude: We do an analysis that is physical, chemical and also biological. To measure a soil’s health, you have to measure its biological activity. There are a lot of eﬀectively dead soils out there—soils that don’t have any detectable microbial activity. The more the soil microbes are active, the more there will be enzymatic activity. So, we measure the quantity of enzymes. By biological activity, we’re really talking about bacteria from actinomycetes [ﬁlament or rod-shaped bacteria] and fungi. We ﬁrst measure their activity on the surface and then deeper, close to the mother rock. A living soil, especially organic or biodynamic, has more microbial activity on the surface than a soil treated with chemical fertilizer. These soils are also much richer in fauna: earth worms, acaroids [mite-like insects] collembolans [small, wingless hexapods]… which in turn help the vine roots to grow deeper. Claude & Lydia Carson Demmond Bourguignon interviewed by Claude Bourguignon is an agricultural engineer with a Ph.D. in soil microbiology. Lydia Bourguignon is an agri-food scientist and enologist. They met while working as researchers for France’s Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA). Together, they have consulted for numerous wineries in France and abroad, including Selosse, Huet, Dujac, Château le Puy, Keller, Elio Altare and Harlan Estate, helping growers understand the complex biological makeup of their vineyards. Their book, Le sol, la terre et les champs, has been referenced by several contributors to this issue. Recently, I reached them in their oﬃces in the Côte d’Or. 22 W I N E & S P I R I T S FA L L 2 0 1 2 Is there, in fact, a means by which the soil inﬂuences the scent, ﬂavor or texture of a wine? How would you describe minerality in a wine? Lydia: Minerality is the perception of the rocks in the soil, by the palate. Claude: Minerals themselves don’t have an odor…with the exception of silex. That one gives oﬀ a scent of pierre à fusil [gunﬂint]. All other minerals are odor-free—sand, limestone. However, each soil gives tactile perceptions in the mouth. We understand this mineral link to the soil by the complexity of the aromas in the wine. The dissenters will say that aromas are carbon-based molecules; they don’t contain oligo elements like manganese, zinc, boron, selenium. But all aromas are synthesized by enzymes that have metallic cofactors.* And these metals all originate in the soil. It’s the microbes that make the metals available to the plant. This is why hydroponic plants—plants grown without soil— don’t have any ﬂavor.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - Fall 2012

Wine & Spirits - Fall 2012
Contents
Can You Taste Terroir?
Bordeaux Underground
False Identity
Life in the Dirt
Hi-Fidelity Terroir
Dirt Prophets
Five Elements
Terroir Top 100
Vegetable Terroir

Wine & Spirits - Fall 2012