Terroir. Terrain. An expression covering the land and all it produces, so this might indicate the crops produced in a particular region, together with the herbs growing there in abundance; the woodland with its provision for hunting, which might include game birds, wild boar, deer and rabbits and so on. Terroir covers the whole life of a rural landscape.
With regard to wine, terroir is a property which distinguishes one wine from another made from the same variety of grape and the same year of harvest but grown in different fields. While a matter of soil differences (composition - mineral content, texture, amount of clay, sand, and humus), terroir also involves degrees of exposure and orientation to the sun and amounts of aridity or humidity, and altitude. Yet, terroir also pertains to differences in the plants growing or grown in the field, along with the wine grapes or even before the vines were planted, as well as differences in microclimates, manner of growing, harvesting, handling, in short, how the grape is handled from the planting of vines to the bottling of wine.
