Chef Dan Barber & Winemaker Randall Grahm on the "Roots" of Terroir in Wine

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“It turns out that the mechanism [mycorrhizal fungi] is a pre-requisite for great wine.  I learned this from Randall Grahm, the iconoclastic winemaker of Bonny Doon Vineyard, in Santa Cruz California.  “Mycorrhizae are microbial demiurges—they bring minerals into the plants,” he told me.  “What does that taste like? Persistence.  The best wines are powerfully persistent.  You breathe out your nose and taste the wine over again, or you leave the bottle open for a week and the wine still tastes alive.  Persistence doesn’t fade, and it doesn’t oxidize.  That’s from the minerals.” - -  Dan Barber, The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food; Chef-partner, Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Blue Hill NYC

Chef Dan Barber and Gerry Dawes in the kitchens of Blue Hill at Stone Barns,

Pocantico Hills, New York, June 2015.

What my staff and I been finding out to our amazement with our terroir-driven artisanal wines from The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group – Gerry Dawes Selections, especially the ones with minimal intervention in the winery, that wines leftover after tastings that I merely put in a small refrigerator with just a cork in them and no Vacuvin stoppers, are still drinking beautifully a week later, often even better than when we opened them. Last night, August 30, 2015, I was reading Dan Barber’s book and came across this amazing quote from Randall Grahm, a winemaker from California, ironically where commercial producers have been trying to deny the existence of mineral terroir for decades.

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Gerry Dawes

Presidente-Jefe & Chairman of the Boar

The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group - Gerry Dawes Selections
Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel

370 Cushman Road

Patterson, NY 12563

gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com

gerrydawes@aol.com

Cell phone: 914-414-6982

Teléfono movíl (en España): (011 34) 670 67 39 34

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Spanish National Gastronomy Award 2003

Food Arts Silver Spoon Award (Written by JBF Outstanding Chef José Andrés)