(DiscoverMagazine) - The Wine Whisperers: Terroir [tare-wah'], a French concept, translates roughly to the way climate, environment, and geology are expressed through wine. 
Terroir is so important to French viniculture that wine is identified by the name of a region—Champagne or Bordeaux—rather than by the name of the grape, as Pinot noir or Cabernet are in the United States. But here in central California the French aesthetic has recently taken hold. Some local winemakers claim that rainfall, irrigation, the degree and direction of slope, the mineral and biological content of the soil, the agricultural history of the vineyard, the indigenous yeasts, even the number and variety of worms in the soil all impart character to wine. For California’s new “terroirists,” expressing this kind of nuance is the job at hand.