Vins D’Effort or Vins D’Terroir

Vins d’Effort

All wine gets processed. If you take some raw Cabernet Franc grapes and puree them, it probably won’t taste or smell good. And it won’t taste anything like wine. That’s because much of wine’s favors develop during fermentation. There, yeast and bacteria interact with the grape’s sugars, terpenoids, carotenoids and phenols to create all-new fruit, mineral and spice aromas. Only a small amount of the grape’s original aroma survives this process, and this is why wine tastes different from grape juice.

So, all wine requires intervention. The philosphical debate is how much is needed and what the wine should reflect: The character of the land or the palette of the winemaker.

With vins d’effort, there is more human intervention. This could be as commonplace as using new oak barrels, adding commercial yeast or putting the wines through malolactic fermentation. Or it could be more intrusive, like adding tartaric acids, powdered tannins and rectified concentrated grape must. Since alcohol, acidity and sugar forms the balance of all wines, altering them means changing what Mother Nature has provided.

So why do it?

First, it allows winemakers to hit all the checkmarks of a “good” consumer-friendly wine — fruit concentration, new wood flavors, soft tannins, subtle residual sugar, and so forth. They’re basically adjusting the flavors of a wine the way you might season a soup.

Second, it evens out inconsistencies in vintages. Virginia is a tricky place to grow wine due to the weather, and intervening in the cellar means winemakers can create a better, more consistent product.

Third, it can help make a wine better structured. This means a balance between acidity, alcohol and tannins. In warm weather, like Virginia’s, grapes ripen quickly, leading to lower acidity and higher amounts of sugar (and therefore alcohol). So many winemakers add tartaric acid not only so that the wine will taste fresh, crisp and elegant, but also to compensate for the higher alcohol levels.

The downside is that “industrial” wines can sometimes lack individuality. So, as Virginia’s wines have improved in quality, some would say they’ve gotten more uniform. Others would say they’ve gotten uniformly better.

convenience to tourists, then the winemaker almost has no choice but to manipulate the grapes. Otherwise, it’s too much of a gamble to find out what the wine will taste like unaided.

The danger with letting terroir speak for itself is that terroir will speak for itself. As wine guru Kermit Lynch put it, “There’s great terroir and there’s lousy terroir. A wine showing terroir doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Also, natural yeasts are unreliable. Winemakers don’t know what genus of yeast they’re working with - the kind that creates pleasant aromas or the kind that smells like a barnyard. The winemaker must also keep a close eye on the fermentation temperatures. Nothing can be done by rote. Wild yeasts are known not to ferment or to stop fermentation prematurely.

Introduction

Ask anyone: The quality of Virginia wines has improved in the last 20 years. Back then, it wasn’t uncommon to find flawed wines. So says Jim Law, owner of Linden Vineyard.

“If somebody made serviceable wine, then that was ‘bravo,’” Law said. “Now there’s much less flawed wines, although there are a lot more serviceable wines.”

So, less bad wine. More decent, adequate wine. Progress!

What changed? Law says it’s the result of better winemaking skills in the cellar. Winemakers are intervening more to imprint their own style on the wine. That sounds appealing — and, again, it has raised the quality of the state wines — but some, like Law, would argue that something has been lost in the process: A sense of terroir.

One of the biggest philosophical divides in the wine world is between “vins d’terroir” and “vins d’effort:” Wine that expresses a sense of place versus wines that express the stylistic tastes of the winemaker. It’s really an Old World vs. New World approach to wine. Most winemakers work not at the extremes, but operate somewhere in the middle.

Do you care?

Many of us would like to think we prefer vins d’terroir — it’s Old World and French. But, if you’ve been drinking New World wines, you’ve likely been drinking vins d’effort for years. It’s how wine making is taught and practiced in California and Australia. And since Virginia wineries are stocked with many graduates of California wine schools like UC Davis, it’s increasingly how wine making is practiced here. 

As for you: Decide if the difference between vins d’terroir or vins d’effort actually matters. If it tastes good, do you care if the winery added some residual sugar? Do you care if the yeast that fermented the wine came from a factory? Does that change your experience? You might not care, and that’s fine.

If you prefer vins d’terroir, or at least want to try them, know that you’ll have to look harder to find quality Virginia wine. Most wineries here practice some degree of vins d’effort. Right away, we can recommend three wineries that fall on the vins d’terroir spectrum: RdV, Arterra and Law’s very own Linden. Arterra is the closest thing Virginia has to a natural winemaker. However, since they do use sulfur dioxide — in small amounts — they prefer the term “clean” winemaking, as in clean flavors and aromas. We’ll do an article on them later.

So although vins d’effort are making Virginia a better place for wine, Law believes that vins d’terroir are the only way to make an amazing, transcendent wine.

“Virginia is overwhelmingly wines of effort,” Law says. “It’s why they’re not flawed anymore. But the highest run-of-quality is still fairly elusive… I want to taste what the land’s bringing, what the weather that vintage is bringing. I want to be as non-intervenous as possible. As soon as winemakers start talking about adding acids and tannins, I zone out.” 

Vins d’Terroir

With Vins d’terroir, winemakers use a light hand in the cellar. They want the wine to express the inherent, unique qualities of a particular vineyard site — climate, soil type, topography, and so forth. The wine needs to be truthful to its sense of place. It cannot be generic.

Jason Murray of Arterra Wines says the goal is not to fit in with Californian or French wines, but to stand out.

“If you take somebody from Burgundy and you tell them you couldn’t distinguish their wines from California or Austria, they are going to be pissed,” Murray said. “You want something that, yes, equals the benchmarks of quality, but is also vividly distinguishable as Virginia.”

The most important decision with vin d’terroir is choosing where to put the vineyard. The second most important decision is determining what grapes will grow best on site. “You have to have grapes that produce top quality crop every year: hot years, cold years, dry years, wet years,” said Murray. Then the vines must be carefully tended to coax out the right flavor profile. The vineyard manger and the cellar manager must work hand-in-hand. 

The ultimate expression of terroir is the micro-flora found at the vineyard. This means using wild yeasts rather than commercial yeasts. When managed well, wild yeasts create more individuality, complexity and add a smoky, leathery aroma to the wine. When managed poorly, the wine can smell like rotten gym socks.

It’s tough work, but Murray says it creates a more authentic, interesting and meaningful wine. It also creates a connection between our dinner table and the natural world.  It’s the difference between eating wild boar versus a factory-raised pig. You can make a good meal out of both, but the wild boar is going to have more complexity of flavor.

The problem with vins d’terroir is that so much depends on the site selection. If a vineyard site was chosen out of expediency or