Initially linked with viticulture (grape growing) - terroir refers to taste of place, referring to material conditions of a locale: soil, topography, microclimate. In addition the know-how, behind agricultural products that helps constitute place as a locus of shared custom and affective belonging (Trubeck 2008)
Linked with viticulture - James Wilson (1998) said terroir = the whole ecology of the vineyard, every aspect of its surroundings from bedrock to late frosts to autumn mist, not excluding the way the vineyard is tended, nor even the soul of the vigneron.
Koleen Guy (2003) - terroir for champagne = symbolically rooted in the soil of a French nation historically cultivated by romanticised peasantry. From long occupation of the same area, the interplay of human ingenuity and curiosity with natural givens of a place. (Barham 2003)
Tim Ingold (2000) = theorisation of landscape as a congealed taskscape, concretization of practical tasks carried out by a skilled agent in an environment.
Artisan cheese vs industrialised cheese
- industrialised cheese - standardised ingredients with hypersterile conditions for a consistent product vs
- artisan cheese - minimally modified milk, guided by sensory analysis, adjust methods to work with rather than against seasonal and climatic variations in milk. Always different fermentation coagulation colour and flavour of cheese (Kindstedt 2005) = context variation.
terroir: for artisan cheese makers - taste of value
agrarian, social, environmental, gastronomic.
Terroir melds two dominant anthropological approaches: political and economic and phenomenological that have characterised place (Trubek, 2008).
Terroir = productive outcome of market capitalism and trade regulation while simultaneously speaking with intimate, sensory apprehension of semiotic significance given to being-in-location (Escobar, 2001).