Slow Food. Pride. Terroir.

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I remember a conference, a dozen years ago. It was about terroir. The speakers were all Italian, except for one, who was French. The Italians spoke of soil, climate, grape varietals, rootstock, technology, yeast. Then, at the end, came the young French oenologist, who simply said this: “The basis of terroir is the pride of the producer.”

His words were essential to me in building my personal, “humanistic” idea of terroir.

I remembered them, when I heard what Carlo Petrini, Slow Food’s founder, said to winemakers gathered in Turin for the presentation of the Slow Wine guide.

“Don’t make just marketing,” he said. “Sometimes go back to the vineyard. Speak proudly about your territory, the land that hosts you.”

“Speak proudly about your territory.”

In this short sequence of words there is everything you need to understand the true meaning of terroir: the story of a territory, narrated through the pride of a winemaker who lives there.

The rest are just tools.

Useful and sometimes essential, but just tools.