If we go all the way back to my first post on Albemarle Terroir, I quoted a description of Terroir written by George Taber.

He says:  “Climatology, geology, and history all fuse in the French concept of terroir.  There’s no exact English translation for the word that combines all the factors that go into making outstanding wine.  Terroir is founded on the conviction that there is a perfect place for making wine, where the soil and the weather and the knowledge of the ages combine to produce truly great vintages. ”

The Ashenfelter et al, 1995 paper that I wrote about found that the quality of a Bordeaux vintage is strongly related to the temperature during the growing season and the rainfall just before and during the harvest season.    As stated above, one of the factors of Terroir is climate.    And, terroir is what can a a wine so fantastic.

But the Ashenfelter paper points to something a bit more sublime.   Variability in the quality of Bordeaux vintages is caused by changes in year to year climate.     Because the climate changes from year to year, the quality changes from year to year.   Since terroir is a function of all three factors above,  terroir is not constant!  (Let’s not talk about Climate Change just yet).

Granted,  there can be some wineries in places you would not normally think of having wineries due to their climate, but the climate component of Terroir becomes very interesting in the face of Ashenfelters paper.    In a side bar,  he quotes A. Haraszthy in a 1862 report to the California Legislature that “California climate is eminently adapted to the culture of grape-vines. . . California, having an even temperature, is warm and with rains in summer.”

There have been long debates about whether California’s Napa Valley has better Terroir than Bordeaux.    It may or may not.   But, given the quote above,  you might be able to say it has a better climate component of Terroir.