Do Soils Transmit Flavors?

Karen, are certain soils associated with certain wine flavors?  For example, does a wine grown in, say, a gravely soil always have a specific flavor as a result?

This is one of the most complex and intriguing questions in present day viticulture.  And the short answer is: no one knows.  On the one hand, grapevines take up chemicals from the soil (hydrogen, nitrogen etc) not flavors per se, so knowing the soil type is not necessarily predictive of what the wine will taste like.  On the other hand, in Europe, empirical evidence over centuries suggests that some types of soil--the slate soils of the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer in Germany, or the limestone soils of the Burgundy and Champagne regions of France--do indeed leave an unmistakable imprint on the flavor of the wines made there.

— Karen

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