Muscardin (moose-car-DEN)

Relatively rare, fairly neutral grape used in France’s southern Rhône in such wines as Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Gigondas.

A wine that tastes of “gout de terroir” usually tastes earthy.

Answer: False.

I love the French term gout de terroir, but like so many French expressions, it exists in some halfway point between the literal and the romantic. Gout de terroir (literally “taste of the terroir”) is the distinctive flavor a wine acquires from the combination of a given grape variety grown in a specific place. Over time, for example, winemakers notice that a certain variety from a certain plot of ground always has the same discernable flavors. That’s the gout de terroir. So, for some wines the gout de terroir may indeed be earthy, but not for others.

“People who say, ‘You can’t drink the good stuff all the time’ are talking rubbish. You must drink good stuff all the time. Every time you drink a bottle of inferior wine it’s like smashing a superior bottle against the wall. The pleasure is lost forever. You can’t get the bottle back.”

― Len Evans (1930-2006), Founder of Australian Wine Bureau, Columnist for The Australian Women’s Weekly

― Len Evans (1930-2006), Founder of Australian Wine Bureau, Columnist for The Australian Women’s Weekly

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