Nothing that new, nothing that special but I could not find better words to express the importance of the territory and its characteristics (“terroir”) for each wine that the world is finally looking back.

“Champagne it’s one of humanity’s happiest achievements, like the invention of the piano or the bicycle.  Take a flock of low chalky hills in the dour, agri-industrial landscape of northern France, plant three members of the Pinot family, harvest them just before winter slams the door on summer, then manipulate the results with cunning craftsmanship.  The result is the most famous wine in the world, and a symbol and metaphor for celebratory ease and sensual finesse.

Once you start to shift the varieties towards lower latitudes, by contrast, those varieties begin to lose their interest.  No grape variety, remember, is universally great.  They are only great in a certain place on earth, with all that that means in terms of soil, topography and climate.”

Source: mr Jefford on Decanter.com