Abstract
The competing explanations of wine terroir reflect conflicting views of nature. Adopting a synthetic view of time and culture, the following essay discusses this epistemological discord. I begin with influential American wine writer Matt Kramer’s idea of somewhere-ness—a meme widely traveled among English-speaking wine drinkers—and the resistance to that idea by empirical researchers. I proceed with a consideration of the precarious universe of the medieval Cistercians, who established the exemplary wine terroir of Burgundy’s Côte d’Or in the 12th century as a bulwark against what I term nowhere-ness. Subsequently, Kramer’s appeal for anti-subjective wine realism is assessed from Theodor Adorno’s perspective on authenticity. The essay concludes with a short look at Ursula K. Le Guin’s “She Unnames Them.” Le Guin’s story supports my contention that the history of wine terroir is a history of ideology and moral control.
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