06 Jun Terroir

In a sip of wine comes the distillation of an endlessly complex series of events and actions, processes and decisions. In wine-making terroir describes the natural conditions of this process: the ground in which the grape vine grows, in which its roots search for nutrients and water, all elements of the climate in which the leaves bud and grow, turn and fall, the whole landscape, with its rainfall and sunlight, wind and humidity (Halliday, n.d.). This is the context in which the wine is produced however it also designates its character. The terroir that shapes the wine is then also the wine itself.

Terroir can also extend beyond this, and points to entwined social, mental and ecological processes – or “ecosophy” (Guattari, 1992 cited in Schuilenburg, 2011). For it is under unique circumstances that a place acquires its specificity, any variation whatsoever can completely alter the outcome. It matters that the tree of my landscape has its roots in the cemetery of European settlement. It matters that it is, in fact, a Bhutan cypress, and is growing not at the lofty altitude of the Himalayan mountains, decorated with coloured flags in a Buddhist temple, but tucked away in a dark corner of a park in Hobart and reaching its way into my loungeroom. It matters that I am seeing this tree from a place of frustration and pandemic imprisonment.

Each part of the project is intrinsically related to the process and context of its progress. In working with landscape, the work produced is shaped by the external conditions – a kernel of an idea is affected by the history, memory, and cultural understanding in which it is planted, the research and process is affected too by the environment it searches through and unfurls. The terroir of the project is the combined condition under which it is taking place and this conditioning becomes the character of the work itself.

Halliday, J. (n.d.) Terrior. The Australian Wine Industry, Halliday. Retrieved from https://www.winecompanion.com.au/resources/australian-wine-industry/terroir#:~:text=The%20terroir%20is%20the%20coming,to%20name%20but%20a%20few.

Schuilenburg, M. (2011) The Right to Terroir Place and Identity in Times of Immigration and Globalization. Open (21), pp. 21-28