The Hidden World of Soil
““When you are chasing after the best flavor, you are chasing after the best ingredients –– and when you’re chasing after the best ingredients, you’re in search of great farming.” ”
Every Natural grower has a different approach to wine. But if you talk to growers long enough, eventually they all bring up one thing: soil.
Soil is perhaps the most fundamental part of making good wine. It sustains the grapes, delivering nutrients that shape their growth and influence the depth of flavors and aromas in the resulting wine.
But what makes good soil, exactly? And what does good soil mean, both for the wine we drink and the Nature that sustains it?
Terroir
When it comes to soil composition, grapevines are surprisingly versatile. With the right care, they can thrive in a variety of different soils. Some winemakers seek out unusual soils, because their composition contributes greatly to a wine’s terroir: the way its place of origin affects its taste.
A wine’s terroir depends on more than soil –– it also involves climate, terrain, and other environmental aspects of where the wine grapes grow –– but soil does play a big part.
The Champagne region of France, for example, is known for its limestone-rich soil. Growing grapes in limestone typically leads to higher acidity in the resulting wine. You may also notice minerality on the wine’s palate –– a subtle, stone-like flavor that comes from unique nutrients in the limestone.
In Sicily, on the other hand, winemakers grow their grapes in volcanic soil. The soil is fine and almost black, and is especially high in iron, potassium, and magnesium –– which may impart a rich and slightly rust-like flavor to the grapes grown in it.
However, most experts agree that outside of these specialty regions, wine grapes do best in loam soil. It’s a crumbly soil that’s the perfect combination of sand, silt, and clay. Loam has excellent drainage when it rains and good water retention during dry periods. It’s also nutrient-rich and appropriately acidic, creating a near-ideal environment for grapevines to grow.
But even with the right composition, not all loam is created equal. Much of soil quality depends on how the grower treats it –– and that’s where Natural growers thrive.
What Makes World-Class Soil?
Todd, Dry Farm Wines Founder
Biodynamic growers can’t rely on pesticides, artificial nutrients, and other interventions to ensure a good harvest. They also don’t use additives to improve their wine before bottling.
Instead, they work alongside Nature to build up extraordinary soil that will result in world-class wine, all with as little human intervention as possible.
Here are a few signs of high-quality Natural soil.
Thriving Soil Bacteria
Soil bacteria quite literally give life to land. These microbes break down lifeless material like dead plant matter, turning it into energy and nutrients that help plants grow.
Bacteria also break down pollutants and pesticides, cleaning the soil and protecting its inhabitants from damage.
Pesticides are one of the biggest threats to healthy soil because they don’t just kill pests. They also devastate soil bacteria populations, degrading land and gradually damaging its soil.
This is one of the big reasons we only buy from pesticide-free farms: we want to support winemakers who strengthen the world’s farmland, not destroy it.
Nutrient Density and Biodiversity
Most conventional farms only grow one or two crops. Every season, those crops use up the same nutrients in the soil, gradually depleting it and leaving it weaker and weaker as time goes on.
Biodynamic growers go the opposite way. They introduce a wide variety of crops, trees, grasses, and even animals to their farmland. Each species adds different nutrients back into the soil.
If biodynamic land is set up well, the flora and fauna achieve nutrient balance, creating a perfect mini-ecosystem with soil that’s always being refilled with nutrients as soon as it’s depleted.
It takes time and effort to get the system started, but long-term, biodynamic farms (and vineyards) will strengthen the land, creating fertile soil and a thriving, biodiverse environment that supports more growth than conventional land does.
Biodynamic systems also become increasingly self-sufficient with time, creating less work for farmers and harvesters in the long run.
Deep Roots
Healthy plants grow deep, sprawling root systems. The roots physically pack the soil together and make it spongier, helping it retain moisture during dry periods and keeping it from washing away during wet periods.
Root offshoots also decompose and release nutrients into the soil, feeding healthy soil bacteria.
Healthy soil leads to healthy roots and plants, which leads to healthier soil, and so on. Winemakers who can create this positive feedback loop in their vineyard improve their land every year –– and that translates to better wine.
Good Wine Starts with Good Soil
Despite its stunning complexity and seemingly endless variety, Natural Wine contains just one ingredient: grapes.
Grapes control a wine’s destiny, from the sugars in the grape juice to the wild yeasts on the grape skin.
Every great winemaker understands that exquisite wine starts with exquisite grapes, and exquisite grapes start with good soil.
To get the best wine, you have to treat Mother Nature well. That’s the ethos that drives us.