(Wines&Vines) - What does terroir mean in an age of big data and social media, a world awash in information yet still unable to agree on the distinguishing role of place in winemaking? 

When scientists from a variety of disciplines gathered in Oregon last month for the XI International Terroir Congress, the question was a hot topic. Between dozens of papers that reported results from projects around the globe that seek a better understanding of the conditions under which grapes grow and wines are made, several papers dug into the thorny issue of what we talk about when we talk about terroir. “It’s been so abused as a marketing tool,” wine critic David Schildknecht told the assembled scientists in a no-holds barred presentation. “Unless it walls something in and walls something out, it’s not going to be useful to discuss anything, scientifically.” 

It’s a simple case of good fences making good neighbors, to quote Robert Frost: with fields of data available to researchers, there’s got to be some way to organize and bring meaning to what might otherwise be an embarrassment of riches.