Wine Me Up

For wine lovers who like to know from whence their wine has come, there is a push for place recognition both on the bottle and in the blend. It's a matter of appellation, writes Bill Zacharkiw, the Montreal Gazette's wine critic. This is how winemakers and marketing people apply 'sense of place' to their essentially ground-up trade.

"What they are trying to communicate to you," says Zacharkiw, is that the "wine is unique because the grapes are grown in a place where the mix of topography, geology, soil and climate makes them different from that of their neighbour."

This is something I would have thought of as terroir before. It seems that the difference (and correct me if I'm wrong, wine people, because I am no aficionado) is that appellation is the nominal distinction among geographic locations for grape production. In other words, distinguishing the various zones where the grapes are grown. Alternately, terroir denotes the sensory experience of a wine -- nose, palette, mouthfeel, all that --  in a way vitally connected to the soil and regional characteristics of any specific wine's production.

Official names for various appellation zones vary by country, writes Zacharkiw... "In France, it’s Appellation d’origine controlée (AOC), in Spain, Denominación de Origen, and in the United States, it’s American Viticultural Area (AVA)."  The only appellation systems in Canada are currently in Ontario and British Columbia. These wines carry the VQA symbol, for Vintners Quality Alliance.

A more strict appellation system, suggests Zacharkiw, would help wine consumers wade through the overwhelming options now found in any given wine section. Instead of gimmicks like weird bottles or cartoonish labels, winemakers can set themselves apart by claiming a stronger sense of grape-in-place, so to speak, as each appellation has within it sub-appellations. Communicating this would help novice wine enthusiasts learn more about regional differences.

Of course, this probably matters much more to people who really care about wine. I'm not one of those people. Distinguishing one winemaker's hint of limestone from another's overtone of basalt is not a gift I have. It's important, to be sure, but the professionals and the wine snobs can have it. Just pair it well, serve it up, and simple folks like me are satisfied.