Description |
336 pages : color illustrations, color maps ; 27 cm |
Contents |
Foreword / Hugh Johnson -- Pt. 1. Elements of the French terroirs. 1. The habitat: what makes good grapes -- Terroir, a unique French term -- Pt. 2. Where the wines grow. 2. Champagne: chalk country. 3. Alsace: granite slopes, marly hills. 4. Burgundy: parade of cap-rock scarps. 5. Aquitaine: a basin filled with rivers, geology, and history. 6. Bordeaux: gravel mounds, limestone plateaux. 7. The Southwest: river terraces, sheets of molasse. 8. The Loire: converging rivers, chalk hills, ancient rocks. 9. The Kimmeridgian Chain: a band of chalky scarps. 10. Auvergne-Bourbonnais: a rift shadowed by volcanic peaks. 11. The Rhone and the Southeast: rootless mountains - shear geology. 12. Languedoc-Roussillon: battered rocks, relentless sun |
Summary |
Why do the fine wines of France grow where they do? How can two seemingly similar sites, even within a single vineyard, produce wines of different quality? How much credit goes to the winemakers and how much belongs to nature itself? Who better to ponder these questions than a geologist and wine-lover in equal measure? James E. Wilson is a firm believer that "terroir" - the interplay of natural elements that make up the myriad environments in which vines grow - is the key to understanding why fine wines are produced where they are. This in-depth study, the result of years of meticulous research, reveals the relationship between rocks and grapes. Here is natural history and social history, little-known fact and anecdote, woven into the tale of how geology influences the quality of wine |
Notes |
"Terroir (tair-wahr), a French term meaning total elements of the vineyard." |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (page 327) and index |
Subject |
Wine and wine making -- France.
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Geology -- France.
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LC no. |
99199288 |
ISBN |
0520219368 |
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