Two of my favorite wine bloggers, Beau and Bill, have recently discussed wines that have a "sense of place"…and the "vin nature" movement on their respective blogs.

Please check out their posts…I’m not going to rehash them in their entirety.

As for my own thoughts…I think that terroir-driven wines are some the most interesting wines you can try. But it’s pretty easy to understand why more producers don’t make them a priority or even a goal.

I don’t have any actual research to support this, but I’m guessing that at least 95% (propbably 99% actually) of wine drinkers just don’t care about terroir. They don’t want to think about the wines they drink. If they like it, and it gives them a buzz, they are happy. And you know what, if that’s what makes them happy…I’m cool with that.

Even for those of us that do enjoy thinking about the wines we drink (okay, I’m obsessed, let’s be honest here) the issue of terroir still isn’t always front of mind. Maybe it’s because I drink a lot of wines from a still-young wine region (the oldest vineyards are only 30 years old) or maybe it’s because there are very few winemakers here that focus on terroir…but I don’t always think about it either (please don’t shun me o mighty wine blogging community!).

I will say that the "vin nature" wines that I’ve tasted were some of the most interesting…they have a uniqueness that is difficult to define. They seem more "real." But, I will admit to wondering if this is because of the wine itself, or because the winemaker TOLD me that they focused on terroir when making them. And, does this "terroir" come from the land/grapes/region…or does it really come from the winemaker himself (or herself)?

That question leads leads us into Tom’s discussion over at Fermentations. I’ll admit it, I don’t quite know.